Paper Parents Pop Quiz #4 -- (PPPQ4)

So here's one...daughter #1 is what we call, "slow on the draw" as a life habit. She was slow to crawl, slow to walk, slow to speak and right now she's slow to use the potty. She just turned three so no cause for big concern but most kids around her age are peeing and dumping on the toilet and she isn't.

Now my biggest regret as a parent the first time around was how I wanted to treat her as a functioning adult. Meaning when she was slow to walk I forced her hand (or foot) a little bit. I basically MADE her take two steps towards me one day. It was a little traumatic but the upshot was that daughter #1 was walking a week later. Looking back I can't say the ends justified the means. Sure I wish she was walking earlier but there really wasn't a good reason to push her when I did.

So. Daughter #1 is now at the same point with her potty training. We're getting advice from friends, family and Mohammud the cab driver on how to get her out of diapers. I'm starting to get a tad impatient and beginning to feel the itch to push. Should I...

A) Let her go as long as it takes. Hopefully she won't be entering her high school years in pampers but it may take a while to get her on the potty. Whatever...it does no good to push her in areas like this, you'll only give her a complex.

B) Start applying growing pressure; verbal cues, reminders, non-verbal cues. Giving her juice in the morning and sitting her on the toilet 30 minutes later as one friend suggested...

C) Start getting a little aggro on her as another friend politely suggested. At three she's old enough to take some pushing as opposed to when you made her walk. By now she should be potty trained and it's about time to start getting her there...

D) Start subscribing to magazines on ranching and scan ads for cattle prods. This potty-training crap is for the birds and why let this drag on when getting her fannie on the can should be a simple matter of voltage?

And the answer is?

For right now a combo of A and B....in my eyes we're not at the point where big pressure needs to be applied. The wife and I would like to live in a world that's size-5 diaper free but we aren't there yet. We'll get there soon I think. And if not, then yeah it's time to renew that subscription to "Cattleman's Illustrated" and let the sparks fly...