3 yr old Peeing on ground and lying about it

[Angelsoft]

My daughter's been potty trained for about 8 months now and hasn't had any issues with it at all. However, recently I started finding a wet spot in her bedroom carpet right by the door and when I asked her about it, she said it was water. I believed her and cleaned it up and went on my way. However a few days later I happened to step in it before I saw it and it was warm. I asked her again and she still said it was water but it was clearly urine. Now she's constantly peeing in the same spot, always taking off her pants and underwear first. And every time I find it, she insists it's just water. I don't know how to handle this, because I've tried explaining to her about using the potty and I've tried time outs and nothing's working. She only does it when I'm not able to see her, like nap time and she always lies about it. So I've got the issue of her lying (which she's doing A LOT lately) on top of the peeing thing. Does anyone have any suggestions? 

[AllisonR]

Hi and welcome to MDC. 

Regarding the lying: I would not say a 3 yo "lying" is so serious. Of course you don't want to encourage it, but I think at that age it comes from a more primal place of emotion - I feel ashamed or mad or some emotion I can't even quite describe, so I will just say it is water. Or even, maybe if I say it is water it will be water or I wish it was water... I would not ask her what it is - you know, she knows, you're just setting her up for the lie. 

In my view, Time outs having nothing to do with peeing on a rug. In her mind, is she in trouble for the peeing, or for the lying, or something else? My suggestion is to try the logical consequence. Next time I would just say, without any emotion of anger or disappointment, in fact completely neutral, "I see you peed on your rug. You need to clean it up." And then make her do all the work. Because the logical consequence of peeing on the rug is having to clean up the mess, and that is a lot of work. My guess is she will do it a few more times, until she realizes it is a lot more work to pee in the rug than to go in the toilet. The first time it might take horribly long - like 45 min or an hour, but make her do all the work. You will have to explain each step but she has to do it. "You need to get a rag. You need to dry up the urine. Now you need to rinse it out in the sink. Now you need to rewash the spot. And again. Now you have to put the rag in the washing room...." The thing is you can not be mad about it, or frustrated or upset. This may be hard to do. But the idea is not she is in trouble, or has been bad. Only that she did something, neither good nor bad, but now she has to do what is necessary to clean up the mess. 

I say this because both my ds and dd had accidents when they were 3, and I never made a big deal about it, but they had to do all the work cleaning up the floor and putting the dirty clothes in the wash and finding new clothes.... So it happened a few times until they figured out on their own that this was way more work than finding the time to use the toilet. Now they are 4.5 and 6.5 and my 6.5 yo has not had an accident in at least a year and my 4.5 year old does about once every 3 months. It's just not worth it.