Mothers of sons - what is the secret?

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Did my DD by my preferred philosophy of taking the lead from her.
But no such luck for DS, who is about to start nursery.
He just won't. It's heartbreaking. He'll say 'no toilet, want nappy', until with silent tears streaming down his face he will try to put the nappy on himself, at which point I think I have traumatised him for life and so put it on.
Have had just one success breaking it down to baby steps. He now gets a big hug for 'trying', ie. standing in front of loo with trousers down. Will now do that for a count of 3 and seems calm.
He has four weeks to crack it.
I bought those wee balls from Dragon's Den, but both kids kept trying to fish them out.
Am not even thinking about the other yet. He can hold it for hours.

My DS is 2.5, and is just starting on the potty. We've had it in the room for months, just so it was a familiar object. Don't think he's ready yet really, but we have had a couple of 'surprise' wees, but he honestly hasn't realised he's about to do it. Am I a bad mother, as I have a 'potty jar' with small sweeties in it? If he will sit on the potty until he counts to 20 then he can have one. Just want to familiarise him with it. We sometimes read a book while he's sitting on it too.

your DS is obviously not ready

OMG i had such a stressful time with my DS - he wasnt allowed to start nursery until he was dry.
so instead of starting in the september we didnt actually start until january!
it doesnt matter now but i remember the anxiety it gave me.

my DS is 7 now and once he was dry daytime the nighttime happened too.

give your DS time and dont worry about it - he wont be in nappies forever!

Well I'm taking his first week off, so I'll be around, but not after that.

I don't mean to give the impression that the children would mean to bully him. But I just think that if he's smelly, they'll say he's smelly or 'poo poo' or something.

I do tend towards the 'wait' approach, but have got overwrought by this looming deadline.

They aren't allowed to say they won't change nappies. It is considered a form of abuse to leave a child in a dirty nappy until their parent arrives to change it.