by Elaine M. Gibson

If you have a child in diapers, if you have a grandchild in diapers, if you are expecting a child or have a friend in any of the aforementioned situations, read on. Toilet training is one aspect of childcare that confronts every parent at least once and "once" is definitely enough.

To begin with, the author substitues the term "toilet learning" for "toilet training." Toilets know what to do, their functions are well established and require no further training. Children on the other hand, must learn to use the toilet.

The variables of such learning are the topics in this wonderful book. Dr. Paul Adams of the University of Louisville School of Medicine writes as a foreword to Toilet Learning:

Most books on child rearing take the viewpoint that coexistence or detente between parent and child is very arduous to maintain. These books become, therefore, manuals on how to outsmart and trick children, or, more euphemistically, to bring the child's behavior under parental control without the child's knowing what hit him. Alison Mack's book does non of this. Instead, it is open, direct, and respectful of the child's real needs and wishes.

Mack proposes that children be given the independence and autonomy necessary to take hold of their own toileting when they are good and ready to do so. Parents are shown how to assess their child's readiness and how to help the child learn what toileting is all about. The book gives a historical perspective on toilet training that is both enlightening and shocking.

The 1914 version of Child Care, still the best selling U.S. government publication, recommended not playing with the baby and advised mothers to begin toilet training when the baby was three months of age!

For the next 40 years, toilet trained mothers worked at getting children out of diapers as soon as possible to eliminate the amount of work required doing laundry. The availability of hot water by tap and the use of automatic washing machines took some of the pressure off both mothers and babies. The advent of disposable diapers was another great step forward. Alison Mack's book is yet another.

Toilet Learning focuses on the needs of the child, not the needs of adults in determining when toilet training should begin. The ability to control bladder and bowel functions develops as a result of the phsical maturation of a child's nervous system.

The second part of the book is a picture book for children with instructions for parents in how to judge a child's readiness and how to present the facts of toilet learning to one's child. This book can save the family a wealth of negative emotions. There should be no need for anger, frustration, shame, or humilation with this approach.