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There's Hope...Sort Of
I am so glad to read all these notes. We have been dealing with this, to varying degrees of severity, for the past 3-4 years. I have had days where I feel so desperate and alone. Currently my son is 8 and has wetting accidents every day at school and wears a pull-up at night. Sometimes he will poo in his pull-up while he is awake and reading in his room. He'll keep the pull-up on, oblivious to the smell and the fact that it is completely inappropriate. We try, try, try not to shame him or make a big deal, but as I'm sure you can relate to, it is VERY difficult sometimes. At school he avoids poo accidents right now, but it has been a struggle just to get to this point.
Our situation began in kindergarten. He is extremely introverted and 1) did not like to go to the potty which was in the room, and 2) did not like to have to ask his teacher if he could go. So he just wouldn't go. He also would get hyper-involved in an activity. He got constipated, was pooing/peeing daily at school, etc... Got that under control, but now...still working on it.
So...here's what our psychologist said to us about 3 months ago, and it makes sense. His ADHD prevents his brain from discerning the importance of various signals. The sensory input is not differentiated...for example, the inputs could be noise from brother singing feeling of needing to pee pleasure at creating cool Leggo structure thirst excitement because neighbor boy is out front the cut on my finger hurts... etc.... All these stimuli are given equal weight and then acted upon only based on one thing...what gives me the most pleasure? Well, going to the bathroom, while hopefully not a negative experience (yet), is not high on the list...so, it's ignored until, whoops! it's too late. But then, how come he's not embarrassed? Doesn't that motivate him? Because that feeling too is judged in the same way the other stimuli were, and the fear of the negative is not as strong as the desire to achieve the positive...so, he again will go for the most pleasureable stimuli. So, he'll pee in his underwear and then decide to go play with the neighbor boy in wet clothes!!!!!!!!!!!!! Play with friend versus change stinky, wet underwear...Easy choice! His brain is just not able (yet) to discriminate stimuli based on internal guidelines other than pleasure, it has to be trained.
I'm sorry this is so long. But here's the solution (I hope)...the basics of potty training. Staying dry, responding to the pee stimui, has to become SO SUPER REWARDING that his brain will send a strong message to STOP what he's doing and go pee. You got it, rewarding an 8 year old boy for going pee-pee on the potty. It feels so counterintuitive. But the thing is, you have to stick to it, and the reward has to be REALLY REALLY GOOD, and you have to stick to it. Did I mention you have to stick to it? That's my problem. After awhile, I'm like...just go! And stop asking me for marshmellows!!!!!!!!!!!!! But the idea of it all makes complete sense, so we're going to implement it 1000% over the summer. I'll let you know...
What do you think? Any feedback?
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