For quite some time, my daughter has been afraid of public toilets that automatically flush. I always thought it was connected to a flood we had in our bathroom upstairs, when she was younger. Today I read in the New York Times that this is a common fear in young kids. I guess it makes sense, considering all the noise a toilet can make. I imagine, from the point of view of a kid, there could be a sense of a loss of control. All of a sudden, the toilet bowl is flushing – when you didn’t choose to flush it!
Well, it turns out that there’s a simple fix if your child suffers from this fear. All you have to do is keep Post-it notes handy. When you enter a restroom that has automatically flushing toilets, you simply cover the sensor with a post-it note. Then it won’t automatically flush until you get rid of the note.
Sometimes the simple solutions in life work best!
This article was posted on Monday, November 12th, 2007 at 8:38 pm and is filed under Mama Lisa, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
3 Responses to “Help for Kids Who Are Afraid of Automatic Flushers in Public Bathrooms”
Leave a Reply
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Wow, what a great idea. My three year old has sensitive hearing and even with normal public toilets wants to be out of the cubicle before I flush and the automatic flush toilets are so much louder. I will be carrying post-its from now on.
November 23rd, 2007 at 8:36 pm
my 6yr old has never liked to use auto flush toilets. She will like this idea!
November 29th, 2007 at 1:48 am
The Flush-Stopper mentioned in the article works good too. Much easier than post-its, in my opinion. And for $3, will last forever. website is at http://www.flush-stopper.com