What does it feel like to be the parent of a four-year-old who can’t pee in the toilet? A 16-year-old who poops in his pants? A 12-year-old who can’t go to sleepover parties because he’s still wearing pull-ups at night?

There’s a kind of private desperation and panic. We can talk about all kinds of sexual practices on national TV, but mum’s the word even among good friends when it comes to sharing the realities of living with a child who’s missed the normal milestones of toilet-training. And there are the unspeakable secret toileting rituals: the dad who is still wiping his son’s butt after every poop – and the son just turned 10. The family who has to leave the ski slope after lunch because their 8-year-old daughter won’t pee in a public restroom.

Parents alternately plead with and rail at their kids, threaten and indulge them, fight with each other, and, mostly in private, tear their hair in shame and anguish. Trips to pediatricians and gastroenterologists can be helpful or can reinforce the feeling that parents have made irreparable mistakes that can’t be undone, and it’s really ALL THEIR FAULT. And since most how-to books on toilet training make the whole process sound like a walk in the park, looking to books for help often reinforces the feeling that a family having these problems has wandered off into the desert and will be lost there forever.