My son is three years old, and we've been trying to potty train him for a while now. Unfortunately, we've hit a major roadblock - his fear of the "skibidi toilet"
You might be wondering what a "skibidi toilet" is, and honestly, I had no idea either until we encountered it. Fron what I've gathered, "skibidi toilet" is basically a new genre of youtube video about evil singing toilets. Basically think zombies but instead they're toilets that sing in your face. I was fine to let my son watch the videos at first, as they seemed innocent enough and fairly harmless, but they soon devolved into strange post apocalyptic material with grotesque toilets fighting in a war against mankind, so I finally intervened and cut him off.
I thought that was the end of it, he can't watch the videos anymore so theres nothing to be afraid of. Well, I was wrong. This has since turned into a complete nightmare for us at home. We recently started potty training and he refuses to use the toilet now due to skibidi toilet. Whenever we try to put him on it he screams and refuses to go anywhere near it. We've tried explaining that skibidi toilet isnt real and our toilet is completely safe, but it seems like it's too overwhelming for him. We even let him decorate it with stickers, hoping it would make him less afraid, but no luck so far. It utterly breaks my heart to see him so anxious about such a simple thing that every child goes through.
I'm not sure how to proceed from here. Should we give him more time and hope that he warms to the toilet, or is it better to try a completely different approach? I know every child is different, but has anyone else experienced something similar? How did you deal with skibidi toilet in your household, if you encountered it?