I agree with the parents who have pointed out the whole control issue here. The real issue you're having is less with potty training and more with a power struggle. For the first time in your son's life, he has found something that is important to you over which he has total control. Why would he want to give up that power? And the more upset and insistent you are, the more power he realizes he has. We went through the same thing w/ our son when he was three. We took a several month break from any talk about potty training. Then on a long weekend during nice weather, we took away the diapers. We warned him a few days ahead of time that there wouldn't be any diapers in the house over the weekend (except special nighttime ones -- he was actually already waking up dry at night, but we didn't want him to feel additional pressure) and that we weren't going to buy anymore because there was no longer anyone in our house who needed them. We tried to be as supportive and "on his side" as we could. We used a sticker chart for successes and no punishment or even slight disappointment with accidents, just saying, "It's okay; we know you can do this!" The key, I think, is that we set up real world consequences that seemingly had nothing to do with us. At the time, my son loved to go to the bagel store with my husband every Sat, had a music class he adored on Sun, and tennis lessons on Tues. We explained that none of those places let people in who might pee in the floor (health dept, you know!). Nothing we could do; rules are rules. If he made it through Friday without any accidents, we would know he could go to the bagel store. We had him out on the deck w/out pants, which he did not want to do. We agreed to try his way first (w/pants) and then we would try w/out pants if that didn't work. We had a potty on the deck and brought it into a room if we went in there. He had an accident w/in a half hour and so off came the pants, but not in a punitive way -- just too much laundry and we had tried his way first. We reminded him about the bagel store, but he had another accident about nn hour later. We let him know how sorry we were that he wouldn't be able to go to the bagel store but that he could go to music class on Sun if he made it through Sat w/out accidents. We put him on the potty evey 20 minutes and set a fun egg timer that he liked for three minutes, during which time he needed to stay on the potty whether or not he went. He started to have some success, and we gave him big hugs the first time (he had gone on the potty in the past, but we were going with a clean slate approach) and then gave more subdued praise thereafter (because using the potty was expected, not a special occasion). When Sat morning rolled around and my husband left for the bagel store w/out our son, our son was shocked and very upset. I hugged him and let him know I understood how sad he was, and that I was sad for him, too. Unfortunately, though, his daddy and I didn't control the bagel store rules. There was nothing we could do. From that point on, he no longer seemed to view using the potty as something we wanted that he could control; he saw it as something he needed to do to get what *he* wanted, and importantly, not because his parents were taking it away but because that was the way these other places worked. I reminded him that he could go to music class if he didn't have any accidents the rest of the day and that I knew he could do it, and that was that. He had one accident over the next month, and then that was that. For another couple of months, he did wait until we put on his overnight diaper to poop, and we dealt with that in a bit of a different way. When little kids poop on a potty, it can be really scary and almost like they are losing a part of themselves, like a limb, into the toilet. Many kids take a bit later to be trained fully with number two. Again, the less it seems to matter to you, the better. You have to convince you son that it's something that he wants. I hope this helps.
