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My four-year-old and I do not see eye to eye on the value of potty training, and she reminds me three to four times a day that I have no control over the situation.

No control? Oh, we’ll see about that. A couple weeks ago, after yet another accident, I finally decided to Assert My Authority and to Create Concrete Consequences (I’ve been reading parenting books again): I told her that there would be no more television until she’s figured out the toilet thing.

So now I’m locked into a battle of wills and my opponent is a four-year-old child. It’s difficult to predict who is going to win.

This is the kid that asks if she can watch TV before she opens her eyes in the morning. This is the kid that nags us all day long because there is nothing she likes better than passively being entertained. Of course, I don’t give in right away. I tell her 463 times that it’s not time yet – we don’t let the kids watch TV until 3:00 at the earliest.

Why 3:00? Because that’s when I need a break. I kick the kids out of the kitchen, pour myself a glass of wine or a cup of tea, and start cleaning the kitchen and prepping dinner. I listen to the radio or some podcasts and poke around Facebook for awhile. 3:00 is mom o’clock, and TV makes that happen.

And now I’ve gone and taken it away.

But here’s the thing: it’s going great.

The day I told Harbour that she had lost her TV privileges, she just said OK and went on her way. The next day, as I changed her, I reminded her that TV was off limits. She listed off the shows that she wasn’t going to watch and then ran off to play. On the third day, I changed her and reminded her that there would be no TV. With a look of utter exasperation that would befit a teenager, she replied “I know, mommy.”

And that was that.

Huh.

I thought it would be hard. I thought we’d give in after days and days of relentless nagging but our days have been better by far. Even River has grudgingly accepted that books are the new Netflix.

On most days, the girls play for hours, sometimes together and sometimes apart. I hear so much less “I’m bored” – I suppose that’s been code for “can we watch TV” but I didn’t pick up on it.

They’re not completely free of screens. River has been playing on the Wii and doing a lot of math games on the iPad. Harbour tends to sit and watch her, but somehow I don’t mind as much. Because really – watching your sister answer math questions? How long can that possibly last?

Famous last words, I’m sure.

Almost two weeks into our TV-free life, I backed down a bit and agreed that we would do a movie night once a week, regardless of the progress made in the bathroom.

The first movie night featured popcorn and donuts and hot chocolate and Megamind. I was afraid that I would undue all the progress that we made, and it took a few days for my four-year-old to get that movie night isn’t a daily ritual but we more or less survived.

I can’t say we’ve been perfect though. A week or so ago, we all got sick and I sent the girls downstairs to overdose on Disney while I stayed upstairs with the baby to catch up on Downton Abbey. A few days later, once the worst of it had passed, we all turned off the screens, emerged from our rooms and let our eyes readjust to natural light. I don’t mind the lapse – movie marathons are a part of being sick, right?

Though I do have to admit that since that week, I haven’t been as strict as I was before. I’ve been letting Harbour watch a show or two on the iPad while she sits on the toilet. My hope is that an episode of Bubble Guppies will help her relax and keep her there longer, and she humours me by making grunting noises if I walk by the bathroom.

Which means she might have won our battle of wills after all.

Crap.

Update: I’m amazed at how many parents talked to me after this post about their own four and five years olds that had trouble toilet trained. I really felt like we were the only ones, but it is so much more common than I realized. The book that really helped me was It’s No Accident: Breakthrough Solutions To Your Child’s Wetting, Constipation, UTIs, And Other Potty Problems by Steve J. Hodges, MD, is a pediatric urologist. He believes that bedwetting and delayed toilet trained can be caused by chronic constipation — which I never would have guessed, given the consistency and frequency of my daughter’s bowel movements. However, he described my daughter so perfectly that I’m convinced that constipation was the culprit. I recommend it for any parents struggling with toilet training.