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Wednesday Wild Card: Naked

Paper towels. Lots of paper towels.

Wednesdays? Anything goes, really.

If you have never added the “StumbleUpon” toolbar to your web browser (and as much as I don’t want to endorse something I’m not getting payback on!) it is a handy little tool for a kind of targeted randomized discovery on the web. Yesterday, for example, I set the toolbar to hit up parenting websites, and clicked through a dozen articles of various quality before I found one particular gem upon which it was worth commenting.[1] In particular, the article called “Potty-training in a Weekend” reminded me of a conversation I had back in February with some fellow parents who were still getting over the curious shock when they discovered their older siblings (in-law) were making use of the so-called “birthday suit method for toilet training:

“Some parents find that the fastest way to move past the diaper days is to set aside a few days devoted solely to potty-training. Some folks call it the birthday suit method, because it involves letting your little one run around with little or nothing on.”[1]

Now, I don’t know about “shock.” I’m not much of a prude when it comes to the weird and wacky tales of crazy parenting methods. I was interested and did my best to pry what information I could from their own second-hand experience with the practice. So, in point form, the best I could surmise is that the recipe goes something like this:

Is this method for me?

- Does your kid stubbornly refuses to learn to use the toilet?
- Are you a hip, New Age Momma?
- Are you looking for some quick and trendy way to teach an awkward life skill?
- Is general hygiene and cleanliness low on your list of priorities?
- Do you need a funny story to tell at parties, weddings, funerals, or on your blog?
- Looking for embarrassing photos to show at your kid’s wedding in twenty-five years?

What you need?

- Plenty of juice boxes and other snacks.
- Paper towels. Lots of paper towels.
- Lack of respect for yourself and your child.
- High tolerance for human feces.

Directions, but really more a set of general guidelines.

1) Set aside a day or so. Call it “Naked Day” and don’t let your kids wear any clothes.
2) Encourage snacking and regular play. Extra fluids and foods with fiber, or things that contain prunes will greatly expedite the process.
3) Allow your kid to feel the shame of soiling himself, the floor, the couch, the remote control, the pantry, or the sleeping dog.
4) Clean as required.
5) Repeat until shame is molded into a useful life skill in using the toilet.

I’ll let readers make their own judgments on this particular method — it’s pros, cons, benefits, and pitfalls — but I’m sure it is not difficult to read my own particular opinion of this practice. I admit, I’ve oversimplified and exaggerated. However, I dug around a little bit and could not find much in the way of reading on this topic. (Comment and share, if you’ve got.) And to be fair, the article cited[1] does suggest a much more controlled and contained version of the example I heard retold to me over the dinner table from friends. But my own critical analysis is simple: To me, this seems sadly like yet another example of the practical taken one step too far beyond the theoretical. To me it doesn’t matter if the support for this method is research based — or from where the “evidence” has come. Skeptical parenting works both ways in that we as parents need to find a balance between the mountains of advice pouring across our lives and doing what is practical and sensible for our kids. Blindly following research is often just as short-sighted as blindly following superstitions, and we can occasionally take things too far in either direction. Case in point.

[1] http://www.revolutionhealth.com/

The skep/dad blog is meant to casually reflect on questions surrounding parenting and raising kids to become critical thinkers by asking questions and examining parenting ideas with a skeptical eye for facts and science. Each article is one dad's personal opinion, backed where relevant by literature and published research. skep/dad welcomes balanced discussion, comments, and ideas.

April 30, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Encounters of the Mind, Skeptical Mindsets

Popularity: 22%

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