“Despite how hard it is, mindfulness is precisely what is needed for successful potty training. We need to pay careful attention to our children and the signs they might be giving us that they need to go to the bathroom. (My little girl tends to get very quiet with a sort of far-away look in her eyes when she’s about to pee. The signs that she’s about to poop are, well, much more obvious.) We need to take a breath and respond with kindness towards our children when they have accidents, even though we may feel like we will go completely insane if we have to clean up one more puddle of pee.”

My reflections on potty training and mindful parenting are up on PsychCentral.com.