The Toilet-Teaching Video Series is a six-unit process that leads you through the process of teaching toileting to children and youth with challenging incontinence needs. This video explains the sequence of the videos.
A full transcript of the video appears below.
Hi, welcome to the Continence Project’s Parent and Caregiver Toilet-Teaching video series. My name is Chayah Lichtig. I’m an occupational therapist and I’m the director of the Vermont Continence Project.
The Continence Project is an interdisciplinary team working to make toileting easier and more successful for children and youth. Our team of consultants includes a dietitian, a nurse, a family support specialist, and me, an occupational therapist. We also have the support of a team of professionals around Vermont.
We’ve studied the science of continence and understand many of the common challenges that people face when trying to move their child towards being dry and clean. For over 15 years, the Vermont Continence Project has worked with parents and professionals to understand how to teach toileting skills to children with and without disabilities. We support positive, person-centered science-driven toilet teaching for all of Vermont’s children and youth.
Our project is based in the Center on Disability and Community Inclusion CDCI at the University of Vermont. CDCI is what’s called a UCEDD or University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities. CDCI is home to 34 full-time staff and 31 projects. The Continence Project is funded by the Vermont Child Health Improvement Project, known as VCHIP.
We feel that it’s important for people to know the beliefs that guide our work. We believe that continence is important for a person’s dignity. Continence is a worthwhile goal that improves a child’s wellbeing. Even when someone may have a medical issue or a disability that may stand in the way of full independence we still believe in supporting them to their abilities. We believe that people want to be continent. Over the years, we’ve worked with many parents who say that their child seems not to care whether or not they are dry or clean. We’ve observed that with appropriate support most people gain skills over time and they’re proud of their continence. We know that incontinence is a stressor for parents not only for the child. We understand that when your child is not continent there are maybe limitations on what you feel you can do as a family or you may feel pressure from others or financial stressors. Some of what we’ll address is how to make life easier now even if your child is still not fully continent. Finally, we believe there is a science to later or atypical toilet learning. Many toilet teaching approaches depend on the same few recommendations. For children and youth who are struggling with continence, however, many of these ideas don’t work or don’t even apply. Fortunately, there are systematic ways to understand and support your child, and this is what we hope to teach.
There are many groups of people who we hope will be helped and served by these videos. First, anyone whose child or youth is struggling with continence, we have a lot of experience with children for whom the parents just aren’t sure why their child isn’t continent and we hope these videos will give you insight. Anyone who wants to get ahead of common pitfalls in toilet teaching, you may be new to toilet teaching for your child and we hope that we’ll help you to steer clear of some of the challenges that we see every day. Anyone who’s trying to teach toileting to someone with a disability, the full inclusion of persons with disabilities in their toilet learning is one of our central aims and is represented throughout our work. And finally, we hope that these videos will be accessed by providers who support all of those people. We hope that doctors, school nurses and others will watch these videos and share them with anyone that you think could benefit.
These videos will cover four major areas of support for toilet learning. Supporting the body that includes health and medical, breathing, positioning on the toilet and other lifestyle changes. Supporting the heart and the mind. We’ll talk about how to teach your child about continence and how to use rewards effectively. Supporting the family. We’ll discuss resources to pay for continence related expenses, decreasing conflict with your child around toileting, and how to work with various professionals who might be part of your team. We’ll also talk about making a plan. How do you create a schedule that supports your child’s continence? How do you keep track of changes and growth and know whether your efforts are working? We know the toilet teaching process can be confusing. We hope that by taking this unit by unit you’ll know where to start and how to get where you want to go.
Here’s our roadmap. Unit one. We’re going to talk about basic health info related to elimination, and we’re going to talk about everything that you can do to take the pressure off of everyone involved. This is actually essential and we hope you’ll pay it special attention.
Unit two. We’re going to talk a lot about digestive health, poop and constipation, because these are actually where we see all, most all of our referrals needing to begin.
Unit three, we’re going to talk about how to address digestive health issues. Why? This smooths the way for all the other teaching that we need to do.
Unit four, rebooting the toilet teaching process. We want you to work smarter, not harder.
Week five, getting back on the toilet. If you have a child who refuses to use the toilet, go in the bathroom, participate in hygiene or they’re sitting but unsuccessful we’re going to talk about it in that unit.
And unit six. Looking toward the future, what to do next, how to manage relapse and how to know if a specialist referral is needed.
In this comic that you see on the screen you’ll see two ducks, a parent and a child. The child is asking, “What are you doing?” And the exhausted looking parent says, “My very best.” We know that teaching toileting to your child can be difficult and uncertain. We designed this series of videos for parents because we want every parent to feel confident that you are doing your very best supporting your child’s continence.
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch this video.
The information contained in this video is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional health or medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare professional.
Next resource:
Elimination Basics
