FOREWORD

I am not a writer, I am not a doctor or a nurse, and I am not certified, licensed or accredited. I AM A MOM. And this gives me all the qualifications I needed to discover the method and concept and write about them in this book.

I hope individuals and professionals will use this book as a tool and recommend it to people who look to them as resources and for guidance.

I am married and have three children -- two boys and a girl. They each have their own unique personality. And they each have different metabolisms. But they were all toilet option trained™ using the EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ I describe in this book.

You will see that one key aspect of the EARLY LEARNING METHOD™, and one of its purposes and benefits, is feedback for progress with communication.

My children each had their own way of communicating that they created themselves and which I learned. As I responded to their communication relating to their waste elimination needs, they became toilet option trained™. One son had a solid grunt to let me know his waste elimination need. Another used his tongue to make a bathroom sound. My daughter got my attention by placing her hands on my cheeks and turning my face to look at hers; then she gave me a look.

Each child saved their special signal and used it only when he/she needed to eliminate waste. They each had a favorite play activity for after they were done with their waste elimination in the toilet. One child liked counting and number songs and games. I remember he also found it easier to learn to ride his bike by counting the number of sidewalk squares he passed, and later the number of houses he passed. Another son liked looking at the wallpaper and talking about colors. He turned out to be a visual learner. They all liked singing and throwing things into the trash.

This communication turned out to be a window to their personality, which helped me understand and communicate and create the EARLY LEARNING METHOD™. Not only in infancy, and not only concerning waste elimination needs, but to communicate with them about other needs and as they made transitions to other stages.

It is widely believed that individuals are influenced or shaped by experiences in their youth. Of course, included within one’s youthful experience base is toilet training. Today, most parents introduce toilet training at a time, not in infancy, but in a child’s life when many other factors complicate the process. These complications frequently create conflicts between parents and children that are based on anger and frustration. Some believe that such conflicts during a child’s formative years can manifest themselves years later in, shall we say, unpleasant ways. Compared to the traditional (or, as I call them, outdated, primitive and obsolete) toilet training procedures in common use today, the EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ I describe in this book occurs at a much earlier, less complicated, time in a child’s life.

Now, as I said before, I’m not any kind licensed professional with advanced educational training. Even so, if I had a choice between (1) avoiding common frustrating conflicts and introducing communication and using a new EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ that will lead to a child being toilet option trained™ or (2) wait a while, use an outdated set of procedures, and take my chances, I would choose avoiding the conflicts. But, in the big picture, this choice is not really all that new.

I had aspirations to be a good parent. I learned from different sources that as good parents raise their children, they plan ahead and make choices that protect the health and safety of their children. If aware of any dangers or negative consequences, they do their best to avoid those situations. If such situations are unavoidable, they learn ways to be prepared as best as possible. Good parents teach their children ways to think before they do, and teach them procedures for emergencies and unexpected situations. They don’t give their children expired food or medication. They’re aware of age appropriate toys and choking hazards. They use socket protectors, have smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.

By choosing to communicate with their infants and using the toilet option training™ approach descrived in this book as a way of receiving feedback, parents are also choosing, at least in my opinion, to reduce future conflicts and their long-term consequences.

Babies can use crying to get parents’ attention and the crying can become very negative. But that is not the kind of communication that this EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ reinforces and encourages. EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ reinforces and encourages communication other than crying.

Implementing positive communication in the beginning of a child’s life is the beginning of having smooth transitions for the many stages of development parents and children will encounter. It is an important consideration for those who desire to be good parents. It is also an important consideration for reducing frustration and having control so that conflicts do not arise. Responding to conflicts can drain important resources of time and energy. Implementing communication in the beginning of a child’s life is the beginning of devoting an appropriate amount of resources to parenting so that an appropriate amount of time and energy can also be devoted to other priority concerns that parents are faced with at the same time, concerns that relate to parents’ own needs in other relationships, and responsibilities.

I learned that the EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ was more than just avoiding negative consequences. Instead, early communication and toilet option training™ became a very positive interaction. This approach gave my husband and me insight into relating with our children as they went through other later development stages. It helped so we were able to guide our children through stages with love and understanding of each individual child’s personality. It also gave our children confidence that they could be successful in communicating with us by using acceptable and positive ways to get attention. As you’ll see, there are oh-so-many reasons to adopt this new EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ that has benefits for children and parents.

The EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ is also an obvious choice for those who are concerned about environmental issues. Such issues relate to (1) waste build up of disposable diapers (which are not biodegradable), (2) resources used to clean dirty, non-disposable diapers, and (3) sanitation concerns.

Here’s another reason that will appeal to everyone. MONEY. Diapers are expensive -- worth it, but expensive. However, with earlier toilet option training™ also comes the benefit of lower, much lower, expenditures for diapers. (Especially prolific children may also require fewer changes of clothes, and less loads of laundry to be washed.) While the child’s well being (and the parent’s mental health) should be the guiding rationale behind decisions such as this, favorable financial considerations are a very nice side benefit.

This subject involving waste elimination is one that everybody can relate to. It has been around since the beginning of humankind. Plumbing has changed much over time. People thought that it did not make it easier to respond to a baby’s waste elimination needs in times with no indoor plumbing. Maybe this and other reasons can be used to support methods used in the past and to consider delaying toilet learning until children can be more independent. Current use of diapers in the USA has been a part of life for so many generations that until now, most people have considered it a fundamental fact that response to children’s waste elimination needs using something other than a diaper is only appropriate at a much older age – usually two to three years old. Challenging fundamental, long-established beliefs is daring. Yet, I know that infants, as young as three weeks old, ARE capable of communication and ARE capable of learning toilet option training™ and ARE capable of having control over their own bodily function of waste elimination. And with the advancement of indoor toilets and plumbing, this choice makes sense for the times in which we are living.

There are so many other advancements that have taken place recently that are hard to believe have become acceptable. But since the long-term benefits were so favorable, people excused the early inconveniences. And now, it is hard to imagine that the choices were not always available. One example of this is the introduction of contact lenses to help with one’s vision correction. Similarly, the long-term benefits of early communication and using the EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ are so favorable that there will be a time that peoplebe a time that peopl will not imagine what life was like before the whole idea was used.

The EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ works best when starting anytime between the ages 3 weeks to 6 months. Understanding an infant as an individual and following this EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ is just the beginning of a healthy way of communicating with children and a way of teaching an entire generation from infancy to adulthood a method in which each person is free from all the delay of learning communication and the negative outcomes from the historical toilet training procedures.

This EARLY LEARNING METHOD™ can work for everyone. It is universal. It is blind to all societal differences like race, religion, education level or financial status. It can be applied at any time of day and any place. It is my hope that people will find the benefits, from communication that results in children being toilet option trained™, will be so useful that future generations will implement the suggested infant communication method as the most obvious and natural choice. The toilet training of children at ages two, three, four, and even five, will be looked back upon as primitive if toilet option training™ was not included as part of a child’s repertoire in infancy. The dark ages of toilet training will be over.