12 y.o. ds who intentionally pees on his carpet - Page 5

[talk de jour]

Originally Posted by nextcommercial

I didn't read any threads... so I may be repeating something.

My brother was a sleepwalker. He would pee in The weirdest places. My hamper was one of his favorites. He would pee in the closet, on the basement stairs.. etc.

Maybe he is sleepwalking?

I know a LOT of people (including myself) who have dreamed about peeing and then started doing it in their sleep, waking up a little too late to catch themselves.

Maybe that's what happened, and he's too embarrassed to let OP know? Like he'll feel silly?

[Qerratsmom]

I have taught middle school and 12 year old boys, even ones that have no mental or physical problems, are still very young and immature and actually can cry easier than the girls. I would never shame a CHILD. I hope Zonie has a chance to modify her opinion on adolecent children before her own children reach that age. Twelve is still very young. If I were the OP and it was my son, I would be offended by Zonie's suggestions.

[joesmom]

Originally Posted by Dar

Shaming children is not okay. Clearly peeing on the floor is not okay, but there are gentle, respectful ways to help solve that problem, and those are the ones we look for here.

Dar

Great post. Thank you.

[MamaWindmill]

Originally Posted by Qerratsmom

I have taught middle school and 12 year old boys, even ones that have no mental or physical problems, are still very young and immature and actually can cry easier than the girls. I would never shame a CHILD. I hope Zonie has a chance to modify her opinion on adolecent children before her own children reach that age. Twelve is still very young. If I were the OP and it was my son, I would be offended by Zonie's suggestions.

I agree whole-heartedly. There also seems to be an undercurrent of hostility toward the child - is it because he's a boy? WOuld people have spewed such angry garbage if this were a girl?

[Purrfect_doll]

Originally Posted by sbm1001

I would love to hear how a 12 y.o. with Asperger's social issues would be treated. Asperger's isn't something I've looked in to or know too much about. I don't know about the social or sensory need being fulfilled, but I'm willing to consider anything & appreciate the guidance.

Shannon

Shannon first off good on you for working thru this with your son. Sometimes they do things we just don't understand and getting to the root of the problem is always harder than it looks. I feel for your son, I still have issues with getting out of bed at night because like him I tend to see things in the dark that just aren't there.

I have a son with Asperger's and we've had floor wetting problems in the past. He is nearly 9 now. What we did for the night light part of things was to buy him a clock radio that has HUGE green lit numbers on it and a brightness setting. (Wal-mart under $20) This allows him to have a dimly lit room without the stigma a night light can cause with friends who just don't get it.

As for the treatment we started with Brain Integration Therapy (BIT) and so far haven't had to go any farther. He's a high functioning Aspie and if you didn't hang with him 24/7 you wouldn't notice most of his issues. BIT is a series of cross over exercises that help to strengthen the connections between the two halves of the brain. The therapist will test to find what areas need to be adjusted and work accordingly. My son ened up with a series of ten 45 minute appointments and then he was done. Not only has this helped with night problems (like night terrors and bed wetting) but it has also helped him greatly with relationship issues. He now has some great friends and is willing to talk to new people (something he has never done in the past). He makes eye contact when talking to you now and his speech has cleared up quite a bit. Friends who hadn't seen him for a few months noted the major difference in his behavior and attitude. He used to have severe sound and light sensitivity pre-BIT. He is my kid who would hit the floor if he heard a loud noise or start to freak out if he was in flourescent lighting for more than 1 hour. Now he can handle loud noises and shopping has become easier since the lights don't make his brain do weird things anymore.

I also went thru the BIT sessions myself due to having a minor stroke before my kidney problems were diagnosed....and now with a potential MS diagnosis hanging over me the doctors can't figure out why I'm not having more symptoms. I truly think the strengthening of the connections in my brain during the therapy sessions has kept me from having more serious symptoms from the obvious brain problems on my MRI.

I'd be happy to send you a sheet with the exercises on it, as I have a second one, so you can see what it entails. Good luck with him, keep listening and you'll do fine.

[Flor]

Originally Posted by Shenjall

12 is not an adult. No where even close. Why is so much expected from them? We dont expect perfection from grown ups, why a child? So sad, so very sad.

(fek, I'm watching you )

I agree. I think an 18 is BARELY and adult, so twleve is still a baby to me.

Zonie--
As for the real world not being kind to him, well, I don't think it's mom's job to be mean to him just so the cruel world won' t feel as bad. Did I miss it, how old are your kids?

[teastaigh]

I'm still afraid of the dark and sleep with the closet light on.
It was very comforting for me, as an adult, to have my dog
sleeping on the floor next to me. I was still nervous getting up
to use the bathroom. I have very bad sleep when my husband
travels as I'm worried and vigilent about being the only parent
at home.

Do you know the poem, Desiderata? One line is "many fears
are born of fatigue and loneliness." The morning and the sunshine
bring great calm. Night is a time of processing that which is
deep inside, the happenings of the day, our consious and
unconscious wonderings.

I think I'd encourage you to just make sure nothing deeper than
fear of the dark is also going on. Is there something else your
son fears? Did something happen? Are there problems at school?
Sometimes we act out what we're worried about too.

Mainly, though, I think we should believe our children. I believe
mine and I believe yours. Why shouldn't I? Don't we want to
be kind and gentle so that our children will learn to be so and will
also expect to be treated thusly?

Are you pursuing some fear of the dark remedies for your son? Does
he have ideas for what might help? You might make a list. Sometimes
light isn't enough. Does he share a room? Is it an option to maybe
have a sleeping bag in your room if he needs that attachment to feel
safe? Does he feel that he can wake you up at night to talk or to be
reassured if he's upset?

I remember being so alone at night. I had no idea that my adulthood
would include the absolute loving, warm security of sleeping next to
my dear husband.

I'm sad to see the hostile, anti-boy sentiment in some of the posts. I
like to think that these are a minority, an aberration, and hopefully not
an unhealthiness that's being cultivated in familes and towards children
out there.

Please let us know how things are going. I feel for your son. By the way,
I think setting the calm, non-negotiable expectation that you explain to
him how to clean his room and that he do it is a good idea. This gives him
some control back too. It also teaches him that he can recover from errors
and that he's an agent of change and progress in his own life. I remember the
weight that lifted off me when I realized that I can apologize to those I love
and enlist their help in improving.

peace,
teastaigh

[JustJamie]

I'm 24, married, with a 15 month old daughter, and I'm terrified of the dark, to the point that if I wake up in the middle of the night, and there aren't lights on in the bedroom, the hallway, AND the bathroom, I will wake up my DH and make him get up and go turn on the lights for me. I'm fortunate that I do have someone next to me who is understanding of my fear and will get out of bed to go turn on the lights. It was really hard for me when I slept alone, and I had many nights where I lay awake in bed just praying for the sun to come up.

There is a product that you may or may not want to get him; I'm pretty sure my DH is getting it for me for Christmas- it's called Brightfeet, and it's literally slippers with a flashlight in the toes.

http://www.x-tremegeek.com/templates...roductID=10823

[sphinxie]

Shannon, you handled that so well!

This reminds me of a sleep disorder a friend may have. I didn't save the actual link but it was related to this: http://www.sleepeducation.com/Disorder.aspx?id=36

Originally Posted by Zonie

O.K, THAT part I missed.

Understand, I am picturing the average normal junior high student. The seventh grader that you see at the bus stop. If there is nothing at all wrong, and he just doesn't want to get up, he needs to be responsible.

Suppose she had not mentioned that her son had this issue? Suppose she was not even aware that he did, but he did anyway? Suppose he had a different issue that she was not aware of?

There is nothing good about being quick to vilify a child.

[doctorjen]

I remember being 12 very, very clearly. For some reason, when I was 12 (actaully from about 12-14) I started to have chronic nightmares. Most of them were so silly that now I can't imagine why they scared me, and many of them were not even scary situations, but there was an overwhelming feeling of terror during them. I remember that at that age, I felt I was too old to go to my mom for comfort in the night (not that she ever meant to make me feel that way, actually) and so I would lie awake and be terrified for hours. I was chronically exhausted, too. Occasionally, I'd sleep with my mom instead, and have no nightmares at all - but I couldn't come up with reasons that I thought were acceptable to sleep with her all the time. For 2 years, I felt like my life was out of my control - and add in a lot of teasing and bullying at school, and I was really miserable during those years. It was a very scary time, and I couldn't in my pre-teen/young teen brain come up with how to fix it, or even see the obvious solutions like asking to sleep with my mom, using a night light, or whatever.

I finally stopped having the horrible dreams when I somehow learned the technique of directed dreaming - where I could just change the direction of the dream consciously in the middle of it. I also stopped wetting the bed at the same age, because I learned to wake myself up whenever I dreamed about using the bathroom.

I bring this up not because it is the same situation as the OP, but because when I was 12, I remember still feeling so very little and needing my mom - but I thought I was too old for those feelings and I hid them from my mom instead. I think if she has asked me outright if I was having problems like this, I would have told her, but I couldn't figure out how to explain it, so I never did. Years later, when I told my mom about these feelings, she was horrified that I'd been so miserable and she'd not known about it.

I think the OP's son is very lucky that she continued to probe into the situation to find out what could be bothering her child to cause him to act in such an immature way. I hope if a similar situation ever arrises with one of my own, that I'll be able to use her example to be equally understanding.

[doctorjen]

Originally Posted by teastaigh

I remember being so alone at night. I had no idea that my adulthood
would include the absolute loving, warm security of sleeping next to
my dear husband.

That so sums up my feelings as well. Boy would it have made my childhood better to have known my dh was waiting for me and I would not have to be afraid and alone!

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by Zonie

This is a teenager, a junior high student, a boy who will be driving in four years.

First of all, he's not a teenager.

Second, what does "a boy who will be driving in four years" have to do with anything? That's four years!! My son is 13.5, and he doesn't even look like the same person that he looked like at 12. Between August, 2005 and August, 2006, he gained 35 pounds, about six inches in height, started growing body hair and his face changed shape. In just one year, he changed totally. I have no idea what he'll look like, act like or think like by the time he's 16! At 12, he was still a kid - at 13, he was a full-blown teenager. But, that's not about the calendar. He has a few male friends who hit puberty several months or a year before he did, and he has several male friends who aren't there yet.

Third - this:

He was scared to tell his mom because it is silly. He peed on the floor because he was afraid of the dark. Who wouldn't be afraid to admit that, much less a 12 year old boy.

Why the part I bolded? Why does he deserve so much more crap for being 12? If this boy is so terrified that he'd rather pee on his carpet than get up at night, then he's having a brutally hard time. Who wants to tell their mom that they're terrified when there are so many people who will dismiss that terror as "silly"? Who are you (or me or anybody else) to decide that someone else's fears are "silly"?

I'm not 12. I'm 38. I'm terrified of spiders...I mean terrified like if I see one in my room, I won't sleep that night, and maybe not the next night. I would hold it for hours if my only choice were to get up at night, if I had reason to think there was a spider in the room. I'm aware it's not rational, and I'm sure the OP's son knows that his fear of the dark isn't rational. But, why isn't a 12 year old boy allowed to be terrified of something when grown men and women are afraid? Why should his fears be dismissed like that?


I cannot believe there are people on this thread who actually dismissed this as "normal teenage laziness", just because the boy initially said he didn't want to get up to use the toilet. I've been around a lot of teenagers in my time (friends of the family, then my brother's friends, then my friends, now ds1's friends) and some of them have been poster children for laziness. None of them would have peed on their carpet. The simple fact that the boy did this is a sign that something is wrong.

OP: Kudos to you for trying to find a way to deal with this and for having your son's trust to the extent that he was willing to tell you he's scared.

[laohaire]

One thing I'm wondering is if some people think that compassion and understanding for the boy equates to saying "it's ok to pee on the floor."

I've posted several times in this thread, all empathizing with the boy and offering some perspective to share the empathy. I didn't, however, say that the OP should just say "Oh well, he's scared, he can pee on the carpet." I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment. This needs to be SOLVED - both because there is something going on with this boy (he's scared or something else) and also because it's just not ok to be peeing on the carpet!

Also in terms of responsibility, I don't see anyone suggesting that he should not have to clean it up. Personally, I - with love and empathy - would have him clean it up, just like the OP did (and like her, I would probably sneak in later and make sure the job was thorough, beyond what we would expect a 12 year old to do). I wouldn't make the cleaning a punishment, either - just a fact of life. If he missed the toilet peeing standing up, it would be his job to clean that too. If I spill a drink, I clean it up. If I track mud on the carpet, I clean it up. Just the way it goes. (One exception for me is - if a child is ill and vomiting, I think a parent should clean that up ).

[Shenjall]

yeah, I think peeing on the floor is the symptom, not the problem......

[Storm Bride]

Originally Posted by laohaire

One thing I'm wondering is if some people think that compassion and understanding for the boy equates to saying "it's ok to pee on the floor."

I've posted several times in this thread, all empathizing with the boy and offering some perspective to share the empathy. I didn't, however, say that the OP should just say "Oh well, he's scared, he can pee on the carpet." I wholeheartedly disagree with that sentiment. This needs to be SOLVED - both because there is something going on with this boy (he's scared or something else) and also because it's just not ok to be peeing on the carpet!

Also in terms of responsibility, I don't see anyone suggesting that he should not have to clean it up. Personally, I - with love and empathy - would have him clean it up, just like the OP did (and like her, I would probably sneak in later and make sure the job was thorough, beyond what we would expect a 12 year old to do). I wouldn't make the cleaning a punishment, either - just a fact of life. If he missed the toilet peeing standing up, it would be his job to clean that too. If I spill a drink, I clean it up. If I track mud on the carpet, I clean it up. Just the way it goes. (One exception for me is - if a child is ill and vomiting, I think a parent should clean that up ).

:
I agree completely...including the part about a vomiting child. I sure don't want to have to clean it up myself when I'm sick!

[stacey2061]

this is a toughie...i'm no expert but i think maybe a man should discuss this with him. men do some weird things for reasons that would dumbfound a woman. 2 years ago my little b-i-l was 11 and we were renting the basement of their family home (also shared with older b-i-l who is in his late 20s). it's a long story but we discovered that older b-i-l was urinating into pop bottles and keeping them (uncovered!) in his room when one of the cats knocked a bottle over. it was disgusting...he said it was because he didn't feel like getting up to use the washroom (which was about 15 feet away from his room)...shortly thereafter we were watching younger b-i-l overnight. late that night he got up frantically looking for a bottle to pee in, instead of going across the hall to his private washroom! i was livid, but tried to be gentle with him. he's always been really good about talking to me but this was one situation that i couldn't help him with. guys and their penile issues...it's not something they usually want their female relatives involved with...

good luck to you!

[AntoninBeGonin]

Originally Posted by stacey2061

this is a toughie...i'm no expert but i think maybe aman should discuss this with him. men do some weird things for reasons that would dumbfound a woman. 2 years ago my little b-i-l was 11 and we were renting the basement of their family home (also shared with older b-i-l who is in his late 20s). it's a long story but we discovered that older b-i-l was urinating into pop bottles and keeping them (uncovered!) in his room when one of the cats knocked a bottle over. it was disgusting...he said it was because he didn't feel like getting up to use the washroom (which was about 15 feet away from his room)...shortly thereafter we were watching younger b-i-l overnight. late that night he got up frantically looking for a bottle to pee in, instead of going across the hall to his private washroom! i was livid, but tried to be gentle with him. he's always been really good about talking to me but this was one situation that i couldn't help him with. guys and their penile issues...it's not something they usually want their female relatives involved with...

good luck to you!

Stacey: OT but do you know if they were circumcised as infants? There are some studies which show infant circumcision can have long term effects. Here's one: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...&dopt=Abstract Maybe that's one of the reasons boys/men seem to have penis issues.

To the OP: I'm glad you talked with your son until you understood what was bothering him. You sound like a great mom By the way, have you mentioned to him that he might want to drink less in the hour before bed? Maybe that would help eliminate the problem. Note that I'm not saying to withhold drinks from him, I think that's mean; instead just run the idea of him cutting back before bed.

~Nay

[AntoninBeGonin]

Also, and this is simply my opinion, I think that we should all try to practice gentle living by accepting that anyone who takes the time to post is trying their best based on their life experiences and what they know about gentle living, and that the best responses to those less than stellar remarks should encourage gentleness, understanding, and perhaps a book recommendation rather than hateful comments like "why the hell are you posting on this board and I hope you never have kids because you really suck dog farts."

Let's try to be nicer all around. (Myself included! : )

~Nay

[JenniferH]

Originally Posted by laohaire

I don't think a nightlight is enough for me, it has to illuminate the room well.

Until the light comes on, I'm irrational. I whine, I plead, I yell, I bang on the wall. Sometimes I even cry. I've never peed on the floor, but who knows.

So I like the nightlight idea but I like even better the idea of a lamp RIGHT BESIDE THE BED that is easy to turn on in a second. No need to get up - just right there. See if your son likes that idea. Maybe even one of those touch-lamps so he doesn't have to fumble with a switch - just reach out, and it's on.

Or, maybe a couple of lamps hooked to a clapper. You know, you clap your hands and the lights come on.

I had (and still do sometimes) very vivid nightmares when I was going through puberty. Even now when I wake up I'm scared to death and can't go back to sleep for a long time. I envy people who don't have dreams. My dreams are so vivid sometimes, I have to work really hard not remember them during the day and shudder.

Heck, I'm 30 years old and I'm not a chicken about anything (except spiders), so if it scares ME it can certainly scare a 12 year old.

[mama2toomany]

is he still asleep while he does it?

My son wakes up half way sometimes and will pee on the wall next to the toilet... on accident

he wet his pants the other day because he just didn't want to get up from playing... I had him put the pants in the washer...


He has to let me know when this happens.. but he also knows that everybody makes mistakes and no one is mad at him for it... just don't hide it in a pile in the closet so i have to discover it on my own.