In spite of this remarkable success rate, the basic three usually are a source of basic trouble for parents. Problems with eating and sleeping often cause trouble right up through the teen years.

The troubles start because parents have limited information about the moment-to-moment needs of the child. They must rely on the child who is often confused himself about when he should eat, sleep, and go to the bathroom.

Add the parent's anxiety to this confusion, throw in the fear of embarrassment a child frequently has, and you have a real stew of potential problems.

In addition to the confusion over the needs of the moment, the basic three have other peculiar characteristics that make them more difficult than the common social behaviors and school skills we try to teach our children later on:

1. The basic three are somewhat out of the control of the parents. You can't directly force a person to eat, sleep, or use the bathroom.

2. The basics are somewhat out of the control of the child as well. A child cannot sleep, feel hungry, or need a bathroom on demand either.

3. Other factors interfere with performance. Even adults find eating related to too little or too much exercise and the day's anxieties, sleeping related to coffee, tea, and worries, and regularity related to diet, disrupted routines, and travel.

4. The final complication is that the basics represent the most mportant aspects of privacy. They are the last place we will tolerate advice, control or interference.

With sleeping habits and toilet training it isn't so easy to see the childhood connection. The need for sleep changes so much as a child grows up. Only occasionally do fears of the dark and isolation related to bedtime linger past childhood.

Of course, child psychologists have favored toilet training as an influence from childhood ever since Freud saw the control, success, and emotion of it as a potential source of later emotional problems.

It is probably not the nature of the task that is so troublesome, but rather that toilet training is the first learning task demanded of the child that is so closely evaluated by each day's outcome. The track record and Dad and Mom's reaction to it may influence a child's attitude toward later parental demands.

Knowing that at least a qualified success is almost guaranteed in the basic three, the best parental approach may be to relax and remember that it is the long-term routines and attitudes that we establish that are most important to health.