Fear of the Toilet

It looks like you need to get the dragon out of the toilet and out of your bathrooms! We've also had issues with "imaginary scary creatures at our house. What has worked is "monster spray" or in your case "dragon spray" Since we all know that monsters don't like things that smell nice, we bought some "monster spray" - air freshner - and let the girls spray in the areas that they found monsters.

Since the dragon is in the toilet, what about buying the disks that change the toilet water. (You know, the disks that freshen up the water and prevent ring around the toilet.) Tell her that the dragons don't like the colorful water and you "the dragon slayer" have placed these special cleaning disk into the water to scare the dragons away. Because the dragons will be so scared of the water in the toilet that they will go away forever because they will remember that your house was the scary house with the colored toilet water.

My guess would be that she dreamed of the purple dragon and sometimes dreams seem so real. I like the idea of the water changing color tablets, it is a easy way to fix it as long as you don't have dogs that would drink out of the toilet. Another thing you might try is a potty seat that goes on top of the toilet, like the princess one. Tell her that the princess keep the dragon away. You could also explain that dragons can't live in the toilet because the water would put out their fire or you could just tell her that dragons are make believe (pretend) and not real.

She sounds pretty verbal and obviously creative- how about asking her what ideas SHE has for getting rid of the dragon? If she doesn't have any, suggest you look it up on the computer for her and cite whatever ideas you like from the suggestions you get from the other moms here or from googling it :)

I know my daughter's fear of the Big Toilet started at two years old when I was at the mall and had to go myself. The load flushing noise it made scared her to the point it set us way back in potty training. She is now 2.5 years old and I am finally have her relaxed about the big toilet but she is finally potty training on her little potty chair. To get her over her fear it was just a lot of reassuring and showing that I use it and it will not harm her.

Maybe ask her why she thinks what she does then next time she says something, if you haven't already, maybe someone said something that stuck with her as a negative about the Big Toilet. Show her you use it and it is ok. Once a child has something in their mind it may take awhile to get over that fear or forget about that saying/idea. I hope she gets over it sooner rather then later!

Hi, R. -

Just throwing this out there... Do you use public toilets a lot with your daughter? My daughter is a little over three, so probably a little more communicative than your daughter. She hates going to the bathroom in public places because she is deathly afraid the automatic flush is going to happen while she is on the toilet. It's a struggle if she knows it's an automatic flusher. I know this seems out there, but it might be scaring your little one, too. Maybe she associates the automatic flusher with the "big" toilet???

R.,

All four of my kids were terrified of using an adult toilet the first 6 months they were toilet trained. They were mostly afraid of falling in. Also, the automatic flushers were highly traumatizing for at least a year. Could the purple dragon possibly roar like an automated flushing toilet?

I wouldn't make a big deal about the dragon. I certainly wouldn't encourage this by trying to vanquish the dragon or anything else that made it even more real. I solved our problem by packing around a seat cover in a bag that can be placed on a regular toilet. I found a fold up kind on eBay that can fit in a large purse, but my kids preferred the cushiony one that comes off their little training potty at home. Yes, it's inconvenient to carry around the potty seat in the bag, but it made using public toilets bearable.

If your daughter can't handle using the adult potty at home even with a seat cover, I would just let her use the little potty chair. Eventually she will give up the dragons and go back to using the adult chair when she wants to.

My oldest daughter (also named R.) has always had a highly developed imagination and can manipulate on a much more sophisticated level than most in her age group. When she was two, she created an imaginary friend to blame everything on and used him to try to get out of trouble. She would walk right into the street and I would tell her to come back. Her response..."I have to get BJ or he will get hit by a car!" In reality, it was a complex ploy to test boundaries and try to get away with stuff. She tried to have BJ get his own chair and place setting at the table (including his own portions of her favorite treats,) but I drew the line and said she and BJ had to share.

It wouldn't surprise me if this was your daughter's creative way to test boundaries.

Good luck,
S.

I'm with the "vanquish the dragon" crowd. Just today my son said there was a dragon in his car seat and couldn't sit there. I simply told the dragon he had to move as that was my son's seat. He seemed happy with that and sat. Hopefully yoiur solution ends as simply.