potty training

potty training sucks!
we started potty training the last week of may and are now done. done and back in diapers. we tried rewards, bribing, losing toys, praise, the "big boy" reasoning, and even dr. phil's one day, sure to get your toddler out of diapers and in the big boy underwear once and for all method. that was the last straw. the boy does not want to use the potty. i can get him to go by telling him to every so often - but that's not having him trained, that's picking a fight with him ten times a day. after trying dr. phil's method and friday and having NO PROGRESS and talking with a friend at church who just finished training her third, we decided to call it quits for a while. if you would have said to me a year ago that kids go when they are ready, i would have said that was due to lazy parenting - kids go when they are trained to... today i say they go when they are ready and you can't make them. if it IS a control issue, we have to back off so he can have control over it, right? so now we are back in diapers and don't talk about it. we'll try again in a couple weeks and see if he's ready then. those "signs of readiness" are worthless to me. he CAN stay dry, and follow simple directions - all of that, it's the showing interest that he lacks. so i'm sad that i wasted 2 months fighting this battle for nothing - btw, he made NO progress in 2 months - but now we don't talk about it and i change his diaper a few times a day and the stress level in our house is way down. so i leave you with what my friend holly told me: don't the pressure of other parents' expectaions dictate your parenting or make you feel pressure to conform to what they think you should do.