Nervous anxiety comes with the parenting territory—and there’s one experience in which almost every mother or father experiences some degree of worry and that’s potty-training.

It’s not the act of teaching a child to use the toilet that’s so troublesome (although that’s fraught with hang-ups itself), but the guilt related to the age in which your child “should” be potty-trained. I speak from personal experience since I had the idea that my daughters “ought” to be visiting the bathroom on a regular basis by at least 2 years old.

They weren’t, but now I find out that Ellen and Polly were average (two years and eight months) in gaining this skill and control of their bodies.

According to the “Parents Answer Book” written by the editors of Parent Magazine, “Most children are ready to take this big step sometime between the ages of 2 and 3. Exactly when your child is ready for this step depends on both physical and psychological factors.

“Physically, the child must be able to control her sphincter muscles voluntarily. There is no way to rush this development. Psychologically she needs to feel in control of the situation.”

You can help with the psychological part of this development with a trip to any of the eight branches or bookmobile of the Springfield-Greene County Library District. In the children’s departments, there are hundreds of books and a few DVDs designed to take the trials and tribulations out of potty training. These books tackle the subject head-on and with lots of humor—a great way to put both parents and kids at ease.

• “Standing Up” by Marie-Anne Gillet and Isabelle Gilboux
  
• “Once Upon a Potty” (in girls’ and boys’ versions) by Alona Frankel, in both book and video
  
• “The New Potty” by Gina and Mercer Mayer
  
• “The Potty Book” (in separate versions for each gender) by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
  
• “Potty!” by Mylo Freeman