Bear in the big blue house potty training

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This is the Potty Song On Bear In The Big Blue House!Dimensions of Video:480x360px

Mary Anne Barnabei

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A lot of people claim that television is going down the toilet. The Disney Channel sets out to prove them right this weekend.

Perhaps the most frank, honest and explicit bathroom show in TV history is . . . well, it's aimed directly at preschoolers. And their parents. The ever-charming, entertaining and educational series "Bear in the Big Blue House" takes on potty training.And Sunday's episode, titled "When You've Got to Go," is about as charming as anything you'll see in kids' TV.

"One of the wonderful things about 'Bear in the Big Blue House' is this bear is such a wonderful, understanding, accepting character that you can't help but love him and think that whatever he says is probably right," said Dr. Barbara J. Howard, who is the nation's leading expert on toilet training. "And then the other characters are so funny that it lightens it all up. And that's really a very valuable thing to do -- lighten up the subject of toileting."

It's a subject to which Howard has devoted a great deal of time. Not only is she a specialist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, but she's also president of the Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics.

This episode of "Bear" certainly has its light moments. There are three songs, including one in which the Bear sings, "Your tush is clean, your tush is dry, flush it down and wave good-bye."

And you can't help but love the big production number toward the end of the half-hour when the puppets from Jim Henson Television turn into the Toileteers, singing, "And when we've got to go we never take it slow because we're toilet, Toileteers."

But there's more to the show than just entertainment. It's full of reassuring messages for both kids and their parents.

"Americans are funny about toileting, just the way they are about sex," Howard said. "It's like they talk about it all the time but in a giggly

kind of way. They're not really emotionally comfortable with the subject, and so it tends to become emotionally charged. And that is not good when raising children because they can sense it. They get worked up about it and then you've got a struggle on your hands."

"Bear in the Big Blue House" is by no means tasteless or vulgar, but it is quite frank. We see animal puppets rushing to the potty and sitting on the potty. We see one of them who didn't quite make it. We hear them talk about it.

"I coached them on completeness, like -- flush and wash your hands and wipe. And frankness -- use the real words," she said. "Don't mince around."

(At one point, the Bear says, "Everybody and every creature has to poop sometimes -- birds, bunnies, bugs, even fish sometimes.")

Howard said the frankness is "very important" when it comes to potty-training.

"The more honest, straightforward and matter-of-fact we are about it, the less of a struggle it will be and the less problem we'll have associated with it," she said. "It was interesting because the various people who had to comment on the show after we created it were worried about this frankness. And, yet, the parents who were in the focus group that evaluated it were thrilled with how honest we were about it.

"And the kids, of course, are definitely thrilled because they want to talk about it. It's very important to them. And to not be allowed to use real words like pee and poop or to be pleased when they've been successful or to be upset when they're not is sort of an undue pressure on them."

The storyline contains scenes that are familiar to every parent (albeit with animal puppets instead of children). Like when Tutter the mouse is so enjoying his playtime he doesn't want to take time out to use the bathroom.

"It's OK, Tutter, I'll be waiting right here when you get back," Bear says. "The game will still be here and, yes, you will still be winning when you get back."

Then there's little Ojo (another bear), who doesn't quite make it to toilet in time. Bear is more than reassuring.

"It's OK. Accidents can happen to anyone," he says. "Now, why don't you finish up and I'll just clean up the floor."

There's even a reassuring moment at the end of the show when Bear and Luna (the moon) talk about how some kids don't want to be potty trained for fear that they'll no longer be babies and their mommies and daddies won't love them as much anymore -- complete with assurances that that just isn't so.

"That was completely my creation," Howard said. "It's pretty easy to teach about plumbing, and the harder part of child development is teaching about emotions. . . . So I was really pleased because I thought it came out pretty well. That one sort of brings a tear to my eye."

The overall message of the episode is much in keeping with current American philosophy on potty training -- to wait until the child is ready and not try to force him or her before that point.

"Actually, Americans are different from other people on this subject," Howard said. "The typical age of toilet training in other cultures is the same as the age of walking. Americans have taken a very different stance on this one. And, historically, it's a recent stance because, probably when our parents were being raised, they probably were toileted early. And I think one of the contributors to this is this sort of general -- let a child be their own person -- attitude.

"And I think the other contributor is paper diapers," she said with a laugh. "Because if you're washing them by hand, I think the pressure must go up quite a lot for getting the whole thing over with."

Although it's not part of the program, Howard did have some comforting words for parents who fear that their handling of potty training could cause their children emotional or psychological problems later in life.

"From the data on difficulties with toileting and subsequent emotional problems, it's really quite clear that it's not the toileting itself -- it's the overall relationship between the parents and the child," she said. "So it's really not so much that you can ruin your kid if you don't do it right, it's more that people suffer a lot worrying about it in a way that they don't have to."

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