POTTY TRAINING: GO WITH THE FLOW WITH SHY KIDS

Are sticker charts and other rewards a good idea when you're trying to potty-train your toddler? Won't your child stop using the potty once you stop using the sticker chart?

For most kids, the sense of satisfaction of being able to use the potty or the toilet on their own eventually becomes a bigger reward than the sticker. But you raise an important point: sticker charts and other similar reward systems (like Smarties!) can actually backfire with children of certain temperaments.

A study published in the June 2006 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience concluded that rather than motivating shy children, rewards can actually make them so anxious that they may decide to opt out of the potty programme.

"Instead of enjoying the rewarding situation, we believe [the shy children] worried about performing, about making a mistake," says Koraly Perez-Edgar, a University of Maryland research scientist involved in the study, which was headed by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

So before you recreate the same potty-training sticker chart that has worked for every child in your family for generations (at least according to family legend), you might want to ask yourself if a more laid-back approach might be more in keeping with his temperament. Sometimes it just makes sense to go with the flow.