Autism>Toilet Training

Toilet Training

• What does toilet-training mean?
• Why do we have a toilet?
  (there are also issues of privacy, secrecy, rules, boundaries...)
• Why does this child have these difficulties?
• What exactly is going on?
  e.g. Is the child scared of the hole? Does he want to remain a baby?
• Who has to deal with the poo?
  = it is also the father's job - to help mum deal with the poo/mess
• What does the child feel about his/ her poo?
  faeces = can be seen as 'babies'/ creations, like monsters, some children want to smear/ paint with, or eat it (= disgusting = a new concept)

… is about differentiating between

• good and bad/ evil
• right and wrong
• in and out
• there and gone
• here and there
• this way not that way/ our way not your way
• clean and dirty/ disgusting
• tidy/ organised and messy
• safe and dangerous/ unhygienic
• development and stagnation
• communication and manipulation
• cooperativeness and tyranny/ blackmailing
• order and anarchy
• life and death

… is a problem of mental function

Introducing the concept of 'that is bad'

• to do with organising the mind
• to do with the process of dreaming
• otherwise we cannot differentiate between good and bad, life and death
• and then there is no possibility of thinking
  = same function as putting things in and out of a box/ order/ structure

… has to be introduced by parents

In order to avoid/ prevent confusion parents have to

• introduce the idea of rules and different places to the child
• give clear boundaries and expectations
• help child to regulate his physical processes and leave nappy behind
• be consistent, reliable, regular and clear
  … if delayed too much - there will be problems with school

… is about conflict

Not as you want it, but as we want it/ this way not that way

• it has to be thrown away
• because I/ parent/ we/ school/ society says so

Lots of implications

• psychological - to do with organising the mind and with the process of dreaming
• philosophical
• emotional
• social - adaptation to social structure, school, groups
• religious - the bad object is all about faeces = represent the bad part/ evil
  = about containment
• if child doesn't want to go = giving child a tremendous weapon
  - to withhold faeces
  - to manipulate and blackmailing