The Potty Wars

Charlotte turned four in January and still refuses to potty train. We've tried everything:

• Rewarding her with chocolate--her favorite food group. The first time since she was two that she refused chocolate.
  
• Rewarding her with money--her favorite anything, until we added it to the potty training efforts.
• Bribing her with the promise of a trip to the Disney store--her second favorite place on Earth. Suddenly, she doesn't need any more plush toys or Polly Pocket-esque princess dolls.
• Having a "potty party," where she gets a doll/bear show her how to use the potty. Nope.
• Putting the rugs in danger and letting her wear the big girl panties. She takes them off and puts on a diaper when she needs to go.
• Buying her a DVD about using the potty. She loves the show's amazingly irritating song, sits on the potty but refuses to go.
• Putting a diaper in the (little) potty so she could go on that. She thought that was pretty funny.
• Telling her that her friends are all using the potty now. And your point is?
  
• Getting frustrated and taking money out of her piggy bank every time she goes in her diaper. I know: Very mean. See above.

The pediatrician and I finally decided that it's a control issue. Since she was about 15 months old, Charlotte has been dragged to speech therapy, physical therapy and occupational therapy, as well as to a neurologist, an ophthalmologist, an audiologist, an orthopedist, and to a couple of other "ists" I've forgotten.

No one asked her if she wanted to go to any of these appointments--we just stuck her in the car and went. The potty is the one thing she has been able to control, so it seemed logical that this was the reason for her refusal to do this one thing on our time line. Until today.

After finding out that she has been using the potty at school, I asked her why she refused to do it at home.

"Cuz. Cuz me make you cry."

So it is a control issue, just not the one I thought.