Play isn’t just about fun—it’s a powerful learning tool says potty learning expert Rebecca Mottram. Learn how how you can incorporate play into your potty learning practices with our free guide.
Through stories, toys, and role-play, children can grasp important concepts, including potty training. Research shows that the funnier you can make it, the more your child will learn and remember.
How does play help with potty training?
If children are resisting or refusing any part of the potty training process, usually there is a gap in learning or a behavioural or emotional issue that they need to address. Solutions such as modifying the approach to suit their temperament, offering more consistency, opportunities for control or privacy, providing reassurance are all helpful but when combined with with play, they are even more effective.
If your child had a negative experience due to constipation or a urinary tract infection, play offers powerful opportunities to work through a painful experience and move on from it, building new, safe connections.
Young children naturally explore and learn new skills through play – play allows them to set the pace and make connections that will develop the cognitive, physical and communication skills that are needed for becoming toilet independent.
How does play affect your child’s brain?
Our brains literally change as we learn – this is called Neuroplasticity.
When children learn through play, their Prefrontal Cortex (that helps wire the brain’s executive control system) is engaged so that they can regulate emotions, make plans, solve problems, and support whole brain integration.
If play is fun – your child is engaging their brain’s reward centres. This releases dopamine and higher dopamine levels are linked to better memory, attention, creativity, mental flexibility and motivation.
If play is meaningful (i.e related to potty learning) – your child is linking a new experience to a familiar one, engaging the parts of the brain which relate to motivation, sense-making, reflection and memory.
If play is engaging – your child is taking charge of their learning, building their self esteem, resilience, pushing away distractions and engaging the brain’s executive control – where they learn to focus, plan, remember instructions and juggle tasks.
If play is iterative (i.e repeating the same game or activity) your child is firing up both the reward and memory networks in order to practice and be creative so they can adapt and improve games, skills, ideas and activities.
If play is socially interactive – your child is building healthy relationships, learning empathy, how to navigate stress and compromise and incorporate the creative ideas and needs of others.
How Can I Support My Child’s Learning Through Play?
The first step is recognising play as a valid method of learning!
Hopefully this blog will have helped to explain the science behind it – now that you’re on board, you can observe your child during free-play to see what types of activity engages them and use that to decide how to support them through more active or adult-led play. remember to make it fun, meaningful, engaging, iterative and socially interactive.
What resources are available?
Thought you’d never ask. As you may have heard from my podcast, I use play and therapeutic storytelling often in my consultations with parents. In my latest book, Positively Potty, I share how parents can approach potty learning in a playful way.
Nurse Rebecca Mottram is an advocate for Baby Pottying and a potty training expert. She is the author of two books; The Baby Pottying Guide and Positively Potty, the host of the Go Potty Podcast and founder of the Little Bunny Bear shop. If you are trying to resolve a potty problem, you can explore Rebecca’s free resources, join her Facebook group or request a private consultation.
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[…] Play-based activities like these are more than just fun; they’re a proven method for building cognitive, physical, and communication skills during important learning milestones. Ready for some ideas? Check out this simple […]