Are you struggling with potty training your autistic child or your students? Whether you are a parent or a special educator, this will give you so many ideas to get started. I was able to talk with Molly Johnson and potty training autistic kids is her jam. Molly is a wealth of knowledge and full of actionable ideas for parents and educators. Let’s get started!
Tara: I'm thrilled to talk to you about potty training! Can you tell me a little bit about yourself?
Molly: Absolutely. My name is Molly Johnson, and I am an autism consultant. I help parents with behaviors and skill development, including potty training. I started my business during the pandemic, transitioning from being an autism and special education teacher in a self-contained classroom. Through this I discovered that my strength was parent collaboration, helping them replicate school progress at home. This passion led me to start a podcast that unexpectedly took off, allowing me to support parents online.
Tara: We have similar stories in a way, except that I'm a speech language pathologist, but I ran my own classroom. So the first half of my career was at the elementary level, self-contained. The last 10 years were early childhood level. I really enjoyed working with families and getting to talk to them, help them brainstorm and troubleshoot, and then learning from them too what works for their child at home.
The Importance of Parent Collaboration
Molly: Anytime a new school year started or anytime I got a new student who transferred in, my mindset was that parents are my biggest and best resource. Each parent knows their child, like the back of their hand. So if I can take their knowledge of their child plus my knowledge of behaviors and skill development, and we work as a team, there's no doubt we're moving forward. There's no doubt we're making progress.
Tara: It's so refreshing to hear that because I think a lot of times we're so entrenched in the day-to-day of all the goals that we need to meet that we don't have a lot of time to collaborate with parents. One time a year at an annual IEP meeting is not enough. It's not sufficient.
Molly: I always tell teachers that I talk to, when you take the time to collaborate, it just makes everybody's life so much easier. I promise you will see so much more progress.
Potty Training Autistic Children
Tara: I know one of the things that you're huge on that so many people need help with is potty training. How did you get into teaching others about potty training?
Molly: Like many teachers in special education, I found myself potty training students because it came with the job. When I started, I relied on generic online strategies, which didn’t work. I realized that these strategies didn’t address sensory, communication, and learning differences specific to autistic children. Through trial and error, I developed my own methods, which I now teach to parents. It’s incredibly rewarding to help families achieve such an important milestone.
Tara: It's so important for independence and also just financially for parents and takes a lot of stress away for them. I feel like even at the early childhood level, when I would have a parent of a 3 or 4 year old, the two things they wanted the most is for their child to be potty trained and to talk. Those are the two difficult things to make happen. It takes a lot of work!
Molly: It does take a lot of work. That's something I tell parents on the front end. There's no magic pill. If there was a magic pill, I would've given it to you already.
There is no magic quick fix. It's not going to happen overnight. If we think about potty training, we think of it as two skills peeing or pooping on the toilet. But it's not that simple. It's feeling that full sensation, recognizing that I have to act on that sensation, walking into the bathroom, pulling down my pants. Once I'm sitting on the toilet, I have to know what to do with my body to get everything out, wiping, pulling up my pants, flushing, washing hands, communicating about the need to go. It's just not that simple. So I really try to stress to parents it is a true process where we're teaching a series of skills. So be patient with your child, but then also be patient and kind to yourself during the process.
The Potty Training Process
Tara: What advice do you give to parents and educators starting the potty training process with an autistic child?
Molly: I always tell parents not to impose a timeline on the process. Popular strategies that promise quick results can be discouraging and unrealistic. Each child is unique, and their progress can’t be predicted. The key is patience with the child and themselves. Potty training involves teaching a series of interconnected skills, not just one or two simple actions.
Tara: What are some essential tools and preparations for potty training?
Molly: Here are a few of my recommendations:
- Seat Cover with Handles and a Stool: Helps with balance and stability, making the child feel secure and comfortable. Raising the knees also facilitates easier bowel movements.
- Potty Books: Choose books that depict real-life toilets and are interactive. This helps children understand the process better.
- Blowing Tools: Items like straws, bubbles, pinwheels, or fake candles can help children blow air out, which puts pressure on the abdomen and aids in bowel movements.
- Visual Schedule: Integrate potty breaks into a visual schedule to prepare the child and show that there’s an end to the activity, which is crucial for children with executive functioning differences.
- Sticky Notes or Toilet Paper: To cover automatic flush sensors in public restrooms, reducing sensory overload from unexpected loud noises.
Advice For Starting Potty Training
Tara: That's great advice. Are there any other pieces of advice you give to parents or educators when they're starting to work on potty training and autistic child?
Molly: I always make sure that parents know to not have a time expectation in your head. There are very popular potty training strategies such as potty train your child over the weekend. That's so unrealistic and it also puts everybody into a box. That's not realistic.
Tara: So are there any prerequisites or readiness skills that kids need to have before they start potty training?
Molly: So the biggest skill that I tell parents to look for is the ability to imitate other actions. Kids learn through modeling and imitation and that simply means they see a behavior or a skill modeled, and then they imitate it.
I think a full body length mirror is one of the best tools you can buy to work on things with your child. Both of you stand in front of the mirror and take an action that your child already knows how to do and model it. Then encourage your child to copy you or to imitate you. That's going to show you if they can imitate. If they are not imitating you, hold off on potty training and work on imitating skills.
if your child isn't imitating you, try exactly what Tara said, start imitating your child and make it fun. This doesn't have to feel like skill development. It doesn't have to feel like teaching and learning. It should be fun.
Common Pitfalls of Potty Training
Tara: So what are some common pitfalls to avoid when potty training an autistic child?
Molly: There are several things I tell parents after my years of trial and error. Things like not sitting a child on the toilet every five to 10 minutes. That is a very popular potty training strategy. Most people follow this one. And honestly, most therapy centers that are potty training autistic kids are still following this strategy. It doesn't make sense. None of us relieve ourselves every 10 minutes. We don't need to add in things that you and I never do. Don't add strategies because you will get those random up and down results.
Tara: I think when you're talking kids peeing a little every 10 minutes, those that can release and kind of training them to do that, that's not gonna help them understand that feeling of having a full bladder. Like that interception piece. And that is so important for identifying when you have to go.
Molly: Great point. If your child's releasing every 10 minutes and they are dribbling a little bit, we're not teaching them to respond to a full bladder. We want them to have a bladder that fills up and then we are going to the bathroom. Another strategy that I tell parents to avoid that kind of goes along with this is sitting your child there for extended periods of time.
A lot of people will just sit a child there until they go, that's not normal either. None of us do that. We're just asking the child to resist the toilet and maybe it's not their behavior when your child's refusing the toilet. Maybe they're annoyed that they're sitting there for long periods of time.
Strategies for Potty Training Autistic Children
Tara: So what strategies do parents find the most success with that you teach them when they implement it?
Molly: I always like parents to do a little teaching on the front end. We want them to know what the toilet's for before we sit them on it. So that's when modeling is going to come into play. Show the child different models of people like parents and siblings. You can incorporate pretend play by using your child's favorite stuffed animal.
So your child should know what the toilet's for by time you sit them on it. They need to get comfortable sitting there. When we model without putting any expectations on the child, we're truly giving them time to soak in the information and process it. That's an important step we don't want to skip out on.
Tara: I love how you talked about having the teddy bear sit on the toilet and integrating some play into it.
Molly: Just have fun, let your child play. Play is such a powerful strategy. Play is probably your child's love language and how they learn best.
Anxiety and Potty Training
Tara: What is your advice for a child that is holding their urine all day?
Molly: So if you're seeing a child withholding that tells me they have great bladder control and they have a lot of awareness and they're waiting. They're predicting your behavior and seeing that mom and dad's behavior is predictable and so they know that diaper's coming.
It also tells me that they probably have a lot of anxiety. Get your child's body moving, get them intentionally moving their body because exercise is known to lower anxiety. It also lowers that fear and intense anxious feeling. This is where something like that visual schedule is going to be a great tool because we're taking away some element of surprise. We are lowering their anxiety by using that added support of a visual schedule.
Tara: Perfect. Amazing tips. And I agree with you, if they're holding it all day, that's actually a really good skill.
Molly: None of us like trying brand new things.
Connect with Molly Johnson
Tara: So I'd love for you to share a little information about your potty training course.
Molly: I have a parent membership where I work with parents in a very collaborative way. Like I told you at the beginning, I think back and forth communication and working on a team is one of the most important things to move your kid forward. So I have a membership where one of my resources for parents is my potty training online course.
This is a course where I have helped hundreds of families potty train their autistic child. And it includes every visual support you will need. It tells you step by step what to do to see some progress with potty training. Also, I know that there's no one size fits all plan and that's why I'm there to support parents.
Tara: There's not many people I can talk this enthusiastically about potty training with. So thank you. I love it.
Website: https://www.theautismconsultant.us
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theautismconsultant/
Watch the interview here:
Listen to the podcast version of this episode here.
Related Topics:
Potty Train With Compassion-Part One
Potty Train With Compassion-Part Two
Potty Train With Compassion-Part Three
If you use visual supports in your classroom or home, you are going to want to sign up for this free Visual Supports Starter Set ASAP! Click here to have one sent to your inbox. Also, be sure to read more about visual supports and how they can help autistic children here.
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