At a loss for what to do....

[Kerrie]

I need some ideas/ suggestions. I have 3 kids - dd 9, ds 7 and dd 5 at the end of the month. I also care for 2 kids - a girl 6 and a boy 8 m-f 8-5. I am at my wits end with all of them but mostly my ds. Hes behavior has been getting worse and worse lately. He does not listen to anyone, it will take me 3 or more times of asking him to do anything for him to listen and generally his sisters lose their patience before he listens to them. He will many times tell me that he didn't know that he was doing whatever I asked him to stop doing. Yesterday, he was swimming in our town pool with a few teenage girls our family knows and he scratched one of them on the back. I don't know why because when I asked him he told me that he didn't know that he did it (3 scratches about 7 inches long). Between yesterday and today he had 3 poop 'accidents'. When I figure it out, he insists that he didn't know. 2 of the 3 times one of the other kids told me that he smelled. He's 7 - that is not going to go well for him in school come September. I told him tonight that we need to figure out how to help him control his body, that I can't do it for him and that while we figure it out maybe he should not be around people and should not go in a pool. We go to our town pool daily and we are planning on going to a pool party tomorrow morning. If he does not 'know' that he is pooping in his pants then how can I trust him to know if he does tomorrow. I explained to him that it is not healthy to swim in a pool with poop and that it's gross. I also explained that if he cannot control his body to not hurt people he needs to be away from them. I don't know what to do. I am thinking of calling the ped. the pooping this often is very new maybe there is a medical issue but I really don't think so. Any thoughts or ideas would be great. TIA

[mom2grrls]

Definitely if the poop accidents are new I would have him checked out if he's not realizing what's going on. As for the listening, he's probably listening but realizes that nothing will happen until you've said it 3 times, KWIM? If you are going up to him, touching him so he looks at you then speaking perhaps he might respond more quickly.

[MovnMama]

Do you make him clean himself up? He's old enough... perhaps that would have some effect? You can get him checked, but with all the other baggage you discussed, do you really think it's a medical issue? Or does he just want as much attention as possible?

All these behavior issues sound like middle-child attention getters. And let me say that I am an only child, and I only have one child right now, so I am in no way an expert on middle children, so I'm repeating what I've heard/seen. But there are a lot of kids in your mix and he's doing what he can to get your attention. We struggle with positive and negative attention a lot, and as a high school teacher, I can tell you that the struggle continues! Even unto young adulthood!

I would focus on stopping the behavior that is most offensive (i.e. pooping, then the listening issues), and create a plan together that makes him feel ... whatever he needs to feel. More fun, more attention from you, from DH, older DC, whatever. I guess it sounds to me like he needs something, and he's asking for it through bad behavior.

[BellinghamCrunchie]

I cannot imagine a 7 year old pooping in his pants for attention. It sounds like functional encopresis (he really doesn't know he is doing it - the embarrassment keeps it from coming into his awareness).

Before you see this as a volitional behavioral issue, I think you should get him checked out by a doctor, and once physical causes are ruled out, if the pooping behavior continues, consider counseling with a practitioner who is experienced in functional encopresis.