hi,
we have two kids, a 4 yr old boy and 3yr old girl. When the boy was 2 1/2 we started to potty train. he was great with poo's to start with, then switched to being great with wee's and pooing in his pants. this dragged on for ages, we tried all of the different methods, several times. in the end when he was 3 1/2 one stressfull day we shouted at him and were fairly angry about the whole situation. after this he was fine, wee's and poo's on the toilet with the odd accident but that was a huge improvement. Then we start to try and train the girl at 2 3/4 years old. she is pretty good at the wee's, some accident but not too bad. but again doesn't seem to get the poo's. we have the odd day we she manages both but these are fairly infrequent. the biggest problem we have now is that the boy who is just turning 4 has now started to poo in his pants again.
we get the feeling that the boy is pooing in his pants because the girl is. generally speaking they get on great, always play well together, they are best friends. Mentally he is very capable. because there is only a 12 month age gap he does not remember a time without her being around, so we think that he see's her as being the same age so if she is pooing in her pants he can too.
we are trying not to get angry and stressed about the situation but it is becoming very difficult not too. we have both seen enough poo to last a lifetime and could realy do with only having to deal with one child not having to re-train the boy also.
the question is this: are we correct in thinking he is just copying her and that in order for him to stop we have to have her trained or do you think that there is something else going on here?
thanks for any comments