The Bribe

The Boss has a great many fears and phobias and pecularities that makes it difficult sometimes to get him to do normal things that a five year old should do on his own.

He will not go into a room by himself, let alone sleep by himself. He chooses his clothes for the day based on which one has the kind of tag he likes to touch. For a long time he wouldn't wear long sleeves or shorts. He becomes almost hysterical when he has to get his hair cut because he gets itchy. He was terribly difficult to potty train because he was afraid of the toilet and would pull his shirt up over his nose at the smell of his own pee. He doesn't just object, he screams and cries piteously for hours. Undiagnosed as of yet apart from some developmental delays, getting him assessed is something I think we will need to do in order to insure his success in school. It is quite possible we will just find out he's just a quirky little dude.

We've helped him progress in some of these areas by taking it slow and offering tempting bribes along the way. It cost me three really cool toys and a ton of candies just to get him potty trained. He had just turned four years old and it was our third attempt.

Our current challenge is getting him to go to the bathroom on his own without crying and begging me to go with him because he is too scared. I couldn't even be in the kitchen when he used the downstairs bathroom just down a short hall or in the master bedroom when he used the bathroom there. It's been three days and so far so good. I bought a huge bag of individual m&m packages and he can choose a package every time he uses the bathroom without asking me to go with him as long as he shares it with Seamonkey. He's drinking a lot of water to earn more candy and has been chowing down on quite a lot of it. It's okay by me to sugar him up good for the week if that means not being begged or ordered to go to the bathroom with him all day long.

Is he not so stankin' cute, though?