My 5 year old daughter starts school next year and poos in her pants regularly i will be taking her to the doctors but any advice appreciated. The part that annoys me the most is that she just sits in i tand will sometimes refuse to go clean herself what will hapoen at school
6 Replies
You needto speak to the teacher they will need to set reminders and send her or have an aid take
her. She will need to clean herself you should make sure she has wipes, spare undies and spare uniform. If she doesnt or cant clean herself she might be helped but will probably be sent home.
You really need to cal the school the week before school starts and let the teacher know about it.
Definitely see your doctor first to rule out a physical or emotional issue.
More often than not though, toileting issues are phsycological. Have you tried asking her why she won't use the toilet, is she scared to go alone? did it maybe hurt to poo one time? Does she not like the sensation of toilet paper? Ask her and see what she says.
My daughter has had on going issues since she started school, her issues relate to anxiety which you'd never actually guess because she's so happy go lucky and socially confident.
Check that she's not constipated too, quite often when kids are constipated they regularly poo themselves because the soft stuff kind of leaks out and they don't actually have a lot of control over it.
The sitting in her soiled clothes or not wanting to clean herself may actually be a sign of embarrassment, kind of like "if I don't acknowledge it, it didn't happen" sort of thing.
Getting to the bottom of why it's happening is they key to getting it to stop!
Also, definitely talk to the teacher about it. My daughters teacher was completely unsympathetic and was no help though so do be prepared to come and collect her from school if it happens. They are actually not allowed to clean the children up physically, the aid will try and talk them through the process but if she can't clean herself you'll have to pick her up.
It's really hard, I feel for you. Definitely start with your gp and go from there. Good luck!
My son had these on going issues and the school was wonderful, the teacher’s aid used to clean him when he was in the younger years. This was qld though where they have heaps of aids, so don’t assume they won’t help. He does have a mild spinal cord issue (youmwouldnt know to look at him) which is the reason, not sure if that made a difference.
I think it may depend on the school, my daughters teacher specifically said the aids legally weren't allowed to physically clean her, they were only allowed to help special needs children clean up (we're in Tasmania, kinder here is first year of primary school though).
That may have just been a cop out though, our teacher was so unsupportive to the point she made our situation worse.
Just saying in my experience, teachers aren't always too helpful with this, not that they're at fault but it can be outside of their expertise.
Also unfortunately ive known few kids like this and when they sit in it, it smells and is unpleasant for the kids that sit close and what happens is kids dont want to be close to them and theyre the kid that smells. Its sad but just fyi, as above said school wont really help but you need to be on top ofit with medical professionals and making sure shes prepared and doing whatever you can to get to the bottom of it for her.
You can start now practicing cleaning and changing herself.
She might need another year off from school if this doesn't get fixed. Depends on the school though