It’s one of the questions I get asked most often — usually at pickup, in a hushed, slightly apologetic voice, like the parent asking is confessing something.
“Should we teach wee first, or poo first?”
But once we actually start talking, it’s almost never really about wee or poo at all. It’s is it even the right time to start? What if she just won’t follow along? She’s amazing at kindy but won’t try at home — what am I doing wrong? Or the opposite — she’s great at home and refuses at kindy, why? What face am I even supposed to make when there’s a toilet accident? Should we ease in step by step, or just go all in at once? One simple-sounding question, and underneath it, a small storm of very real worries.
I used to think there was a tidy, correct answer hiding somewhere — a proper sequence, like tying shoes or brushing teeth. There isn’t. But the more I sat with this question — as an educator, then really listening to what parents were actually asking me, and finally looking back at real children in my own classroom — the more I realised it doesn’t have one answer. It has three, depending on whose chair you’re sitting in. And underneath all three chairs, the same handful of threads keep showing up: relationships, autonomy, the partnership between home and classroom, and a child’s right to a bit of dignity while they figure all this out.
So instead of writing one long post, I split it into a three-part series, each one looking at the same question from a different seat:
Part 1 — The Educator’s View
From the classroom, “order” was never really the right thing to watch for. What matters more is staying connected to each child rather than locked onto a routine, and giving them real ownership of their own body along the way. → [Read Part 1: What I See From the Classroom Chair]
Part 2 — The Parent’s View
This is the one for every parent lying awake wondering if they’re doing it right. Timing fears, the confusing home-vs-classroom mismatch, what your face is doing during an accident, and the step-by-step-vs-all-at-once debate — worked through one worry at a time. → [Read Part 2: The View From the Family Bathroom]
Part 3 — My Case
Finally, the real thing: three children from my own classroom. One quietly terrified of the toilet itself. One who couldn’t even get through the bathroom door. And one who, without anyone asking, simply started following her friends. → [Read Part 3: Three Children, Three Very Different Doors]
If you’re short on time, start wherever your own seat is — teacher, parent, or just curious. But read together, the three add up to something I couldn’t have said in one post: the “right” order was never the point. Readiness, dignity, and the relationships around a child always were.