Helping Ungrateful Sister?

Question

I have 5 kids and they were all potty trained by age 2. My sister has a 3 year old son who she cannot potty train, but this is partly due to her laziness, so it's not all his fault. A while ago, I told her that when he was ready to potty train, I would help her do it. I had planned on taking him for a week and potty training him, but she asked me to do it this week .I am getting ready for the adoption of triplet babies next week. We are redoing 9 rooms of our house by next week. I really don't have time to take a week off and potty train my nephew. If she had asked earlier I would have done it. I will be busy for a while with these babies. So instead, I took my nephew today. We went shopping and he got a children's potty chair, a potty seat that connects to the normal toilet, Kandoo wipes for easy wiping, M&M's for when he goes potty in the potty chair (1 for pee, 2 for p**p), a backpack of his choice to replace the diaper bag, Pull-Ups, 5 packs of underwear of his choice, & a special

Answer 1

Yes I'm sure all of your children were potty trained by age 2...about as much as I enjoy stepping in cow pies.

Answer 2

You sound super generous. If she's ungrateful that's her own problem, you seem to have done a lot already! I wouldn't worry about it, you have a lot of your own family stuff going on, though you can still help out by giving her advice and support.

Answer 3

Relationships are about give and take, perhaps you could offer help this way.... ask her if she can bring him to your house, she can stay and help you with your remodeling and you and her can both work on the potty training while accomplishing your needs as well.  That way you will be helping her to help herself with the training and she will be helping you for your help.  That way she will know what to be doing when she has him at home as well.  Just a thought.

Sounds like you've done quite a bit so far, and she should be grateful, sometimes Mom's are offended by help from others as it makes them feel inadequate. You're sisters and maybe she envies how well you do with your own family.  Feeling out the situation for what it is, is all you can do, and take in to account how you might be making her feel about her parenting skills, if you make her feel like a better parent, praise goes a long way and will help her to make even more positive changes in the way she parents.

Answer 4

The way you wrote it, she really does sound ungrateful, but there might be some other reasons she feels upset. Perhaps she's upset that after insisting on helping her and offering so much advice she finally gives in and you can't do it.  Not your fault of course, you have your plate FULL!!  Perhaps she feels like you bought all this stuff just to shut her up and get out of having to help her, maybe she's offended that you feel she couldn't afford to buy all the potty training materials...maybe she had made plans for her week off?? who knows..I think probably the best way to handle this would have been to ask her if you could do it next week or another week or maybe giving her the choice of having you buy all the stuff this week or waiting a few weeks til your schedule cleared.  Either way, I wouldn't worry about it. I think you were a great sister and did a wonderful thing!

Answer 5

She is lazy and wants you to do all the work. She's probably been that way all of your lives.

Answer 6

I personally think you still did a lot to help her. The stuff you bought is not cheap. Sounds like you need all the money you can get right now with the expantion of your family. You did nothing wrong - she just sounds ungrateful.

I'm in the process of potty training my son (he will be 2 next month). How did you get your kids potty trained by age 2?? I'd be interested in your 'step by step' instructions sometime if you have time to send them to me...I feel like I'm going crazy with frustration. My son wants to go & tells me 'mommy potty' both only AFTER he already went.

Answer 7

you may think your generous, but you sound super pushy and you may be overstepping your bounds here.

Instead of trying to take over the process. I think she would have been happier with your "HELP".

You should have offered to take her and the child shopping and work with them. your not helping her become independent by doing it for her.

she is never gonna figure it out if you step overtop of her and pretend to be this childs mother.

so back off a little and this child will potty train at his own pace.