Zeno's Bar & Grill

Chicago Magazine recently reported on a new class available to Chicagoland youngsters. It’s probably not as fun as Young Picassos or Junior Mozarts. This Potty Training Boot Camp is more like Pee Wee West Point (pun intended). It’s pretty harsh: during the five hour boot camp, the kids and parents spend the day in the boot camp director’s kitchen without toys, books, electronic media…or healthy food. The kids spend the day drinking juice and eating salty foods and candy. Moms must sit by when kids have accidents and clean up after themselves.

Parents are turning to this desperate measure to get their children ready for preschools and day cares that require children, sometimes as young as 2 ½ , to be potty trained.

Melanie and I are lucky enough to live in areas that offer many preschool options and I used the potty training requirement as my first criterion in narrowing down which school to select. (This was a smart move because both of my kids were past their 3rd birthday before they were out of pull-ups.) Others aren’t so lucky to have that choice.

Maybe a better solution than boot camp would be for preschool and day care directors to cut us parents a break by relaxing the rules on potty training. After all, it’s not like we’re sending them off to college in their Huggies!

--Kelly