North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Health and Physical Development (HPD)

Subdomain: Self-Care

Goal: Children develop independence in caring for themselves and their environment.

Skill Progression: Toileting

Age: 21-24 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 21-24 Months.

Practices getting on and off the potty, pulling pants down and back up

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child in the bathroom when using the potty.

Elicitation Strategy

No elicitation needed.

Behavior Observed

The child completes the actions needed to undress, sit on the potty, and redress, if they are wearing clothing that is easy to manipulate. Parents who began toilet training at around 18 months may see that the child is mostly bladder trained.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Encourage parents to provide clothing that is easy to pull down and up (e.g., a loose elastic waistband, no zippers, snaps or straps). Motivation is key to toilet training. Children have to not only feel the need, but want to use the toilet. One clever idea is to use a dot-to-dot picture and connect a dot every time the child urinates or two dots if the child defecates. When the picture is complete, the child wins a prize.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.