IS TOILET TRAINING AS EASY AS A B C?

Toilet training is often viewed as a fairly straightforward process. This may be why much of the prescriptive literature available today has not been subject empirical investigation. This study followed twenty-six children through toilet training to investigate five factors that are assumed to be associated with a successful outcome to training - child readiness, parental readiness, behavioural style of parents, child temperament and the type of approach parent's use to train their child. Three of these five factors - behavioural style of parent's, child temperament and the approach parent's use to train their child - were found to be associated with a successful outcome. Advice for parent's who have difficulties with toilet training is presented along with recommendations for improving the measures used in this study for future research.Southmead Health Services N.H.S. Trus