How To Get Boys To Pee Standing Up

I have been a parent for almost four years, and so far the experience is a never-ending process of working on something. Working on sleep training, working on potty training, working on NOT telling Grandma “I hate you and I wish you would go back to Florida!” (Any tips on that last one are more than welcome. That’s why there’s a comments section below.) But I never thought I’d lose sleep Googling, “How to get boys to pee standing up.”

This month, we’re working on teaching our son to pee standing up. It’s not something that has come naturally to him or that he has gravitated towards, so it requires some effort. And before you start mentally composing opinionated comments, we’re not doing this because he’s a boy and therefore we think he should “piss like a man.”

We’re doing it because something about the height of the toilets at his preschool is causing his wee to dribble over the edge of the seat and down onto the pants, socks and shoes. We are getting bags of urine-soaked clothes in his backpack at the end of every school day, and as New York City apartment dwellers, we don’t have an easy way to wash these things on the daily.

I wouldn’t care if he continued to cop a squat forever if the liquid just stayed in the bowl, but now it IS time to piss like a man and pee standing up, if only for the sake of our laundromat bill.

@momcavetv Dear son…. #momsoftiktokclubover30 #mamasontiktok #boymom #momofboys #momofboyslife #momprobs101 #momcleaninghouse #momlifehack ♬ Punk Monk – Playboi Carti

The problem is, he doesn’t wanna. I have a strong-willed child, and the usual rewards charts and candy bribes don’t work, especially when his mind is set against doing something that we want him to do.

We tried all kinds of fun things, even putting Cheerios in the toilet for aim practice, but our few attempts resulted in him screaming himself purple, and we were afraid that we might cause deep-seated (see what I did there?) bathroom issues.

So we did what any red-blooded American parent does in a time of crisis: we Googled, “how to get boys to pee standing up,” found a gadget with good reviews, and Amazon Prime’d it. (This is an affiliate link. If you buy through it, we make a few pennies, which will help cover the cost of all the toilet paper my kid wastes.)

Behold the Frog Potty. It has suction cups that allow you to place it at just the right height for your Pisser-in-Training, and the light green part easily lifts out for mess-free disposal and cleaning. But the best part is the red tongue/glottis/propeller thing, which teaches little boys to aim. And if they aim just right and the stream is powerful enough, it spins around! It’s the pinball machine of urinals! Or something!

And while we’re talking Amazon gadgets… I kind of fell down a rabbit hole. There’s also a travel urinal for little boys and flushable toilet targets for practicing aim!

So far, the judgmental eyes of the frog are more intimidating than enticing to Charlie, but I am enjoying making my husband pee in it while we all watch under the guise that it will encourage the kid to want to do the same.

Do you think this is weird? Not the group pee party I just mentioned, but the urinal itself. Do you think it’s going to foster a fetish of wanting to pee into the throats of amphibians or other animals? Or people? Do you think I’m weird for thinking about future fetishes my son might have as a result of a parenting choice I’ve made? If so, WHY do you allow your mind to wander in this demented manner?

Don’t answer any of that. Just tell me how to get my child to stop saying, “I hate you, Grandma. Go back to Florida!” That’s some parenting advice I can actually use.