Ready to Play? Potty Training Not Required
Rebecca Lingo • October 2, 2025

Potty Training Shouldn’t Hold Your Child Back

If you’re the parent of a bright, curious, fun-loving child, you already know how much joy they bring to every room they enter. You also know how much pressure there is around potty training, pressure that sometimes overshadows everything else your child is learning and doing well.


In many conventional preschools, healthy, social, academically ready children are excluded from moving up with their peers if they haven’t mastered using the toilet. One skill, potty training, becomes the deciding factor for whether they are “ready”.


At Wheaton Montessori School, we believe that using the restroom is just one skill among many. It is not, and should not be, the measure of your child’s readiness or success.


What Parents Often Ask About Potty Training and School


  • Does my child need to be fully potty-trained to start school?
  • What happens if my child has an accident during the day?
  • Will teachers help my child if they need to use the bathroom?
  • Is there a grace period if my child is still learning?
  • How independent does my child need to be in the bathroom? (e.g., wiping, washing hands, managing clothing)
  • What if my child regresses after starting school?
  • How do you handle children who are afraid or reluctant to use the school bathroom?
  • Are pull-ups allowed if my child is close but not quite ready?
  • How do you keep the bathroom routine consistent between home and school?


Our team of trained Montessori teachers answers these questions with confidence and compassion:


“We’re not worried about your child’s current level of toileting independence, awareness, or even interest. What we do care about is making sure your child is included, learning alongside younger and older classmates, building confidence, and practicing skills at their own pace. Here, your child is known for their strengths, supported in areas that are still developing, and given the gift of time. And with time and practice, every child gets there.”


Potty Training Is Big Work


Learning how to use the toilet is big work for a young child. Just like learning to read, some children master it early and with ease, while others need more time and practice. Neither path is “better”; they are simply different.


Excluding a child who is ready for academic challenges, social growth, and independence outside the home, just because they haven’t mastered this one skill, only limits them. At Wheaton Montessori School, we believe in meeting children at their peak of curiosity and readiness, and that includes helping them practice toileting without letting it hold them back.


Partnering With You


Every child’s timeline looks different. And that’s okay. At Wheaton Montessori School, we’ve got you.


We invite you to schedule a school tour and learn more about our classrooms and see how we partner with families to celebrate children exactly as they are, curious, capable, and full of potential. Together, we’ll keep every aspect of life appropriately challenged, but never forced.


Your child is exactly who they are meant to be right now. Your parenting is enough right now. Forget the pressure of curated social media feeds, let’s enjoy these precious early years together.

People in a classroom setting, the Lighthouse Parenting & Montessori with the guiding the child tag line below it.

Lighthouse Parenting & Montessori: Guiding the Child

By Rebecca Lingo • November 10, 2025
In a world where parenting and education often default to over-scheduling, micromanaging, and high-stakes achievement, two philosophies stand out for their balance, wisdom, and deep respect for the child: Lighthouse Parenting, coined by Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist. The Montessori Method, developed by Dr. Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator. At first glance, one is a parenting model and the other an educational framework. But look more closely, and you'll find they share a profound common ground: both recognize that children thrive not when they're controlled, but when they're guided with care, clarity, and trust. The Shared Philosophy: Respect, Trust, and Autonomy Lighthouse Parenting teaches us to be the calm, steady presence in a child’s life. Like a lighthouse, a parent offers safety and guidance—but doesn’t steer the ship. Children are allowed to make choices, face challenges, and learn from experience, while knowing there’s a safe harbor when needed. Montessori education emphasizes the prepared environment, freedom within limits, and the role of the adult as a guide, not a director. The child is seen as naturally curious and capable, needing space, not pressure, to reach their full potential. Both approaches believe that children learn best when: They feel safe and supported (emotional security). They are given appropriate freedom (autonomy). They are trusted to be capable of growth (respect). How Lighthouse Parenting Mirrors Montessori Principles Let’s explore specific parallels between the two approaches: 
A child working with number rods on a mat. Text: After Number Rods: Growing a Felt Understanding of Mathematics.

After Number Rods: Growing a Felt Understanding of Mathematics

By Kelly Jonelis and Rebecca Lingo • November 3, 2025
In Montessori classrooms, mathematical understanding begins long before symbols or equations appear. It begins in the body. When young children carry Number Rods—red and blue wooden bars of increasing length—they are not merely learning to count. They are internalizing what quantity feels like. The rods show quantities in a fixed, linear, and measurable form—not loose, individual, or separate units. This difference is subtle but powerful. In many conventional early math settings, children are shown three buttons or four apples and asked, “How many?” Montessori children certainly have those experiences too, through materials like Cards and Counters. But the Number Rods introduce something more abstract: quantity as something continuous and measurable. A rod of six is one solid piece, not six separate ones. It represents a fixed magnitude that can be compared, combined, or measured—laying the foundation for the number line, for operations, and for the idea that numbers express magnitude as well as count. “This concept can be compared to an eight-ounce glass of water: you don’t have eight separate ounces, you have a glass that is eight ounces. It’s a whole quantity, not a sum of parts. Likewise, the Number Rods offer children an experience of number as a unified magnitude. The “six” rod is not three twos or two threes; it is simply six. That understanding, that a number can be both composed and whole, bridges a crucial conceptual gap for later mathematics.” Kelly Jonelis, Adolescent Program Director and Math Teacher Through countless experiences—carrying, comparing, building stair patterns, and making “ten combinations”—children begin to feel relationships between numbers. They see that five is longer than three by exactly two, and that these relationships are consistent and reliable. This concrete sense of equivalence and proportion quietly becomes the basis of estimation, measurement, and algebraic thinking. Even extensions like “memory games” or exploring one meter in length serve a larger purpose. The child’s repeated interactions with fixed quantities help them internalize what Montessori called “materialized abstraction.” They are learning, through movement and perception, what it means for a quantity to exist in space and time—a step far deeper than counting individual items.