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My Daughter turned 4 years old this past October.. She has been in her Forever Home since early September. We knew from the beginning she needed Potty help,, and would put a Pull-up on her at Bed-time. The first month or so ,, since she has been home, she was really good at saying Mommy I have to Pee Pee,, and she would go and sit on her ( Dora Padded Toilet Seat ) But in the last few weeks or more,, she has been going in her pants,, so we bought Toddler training pants,, but we would always ask her often if she had to go ,, and she would always respond no,no,no. For Example today,,, I asked her repeatedly if she needed to use the potty before we went to the mall,, she said no,, I drove :drive: the 15 minutes to the mall,, went to get her out of her seat and her pants we soaked,:laundry: ,,I need advice as to how to handle this,, I dont know what to say anymore,, She has gone to bed early,,she was told no dessert,,no Juice or Drink before Bed-time,, but she continues to soil herself,, and when I changed her Pull-up,, she finds it funny!!,, Please Help with any Advice..Thank you:thanks:
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Personally, it's not something I'd work on right now. Sounds like a bit of a control situation with her combined adjustment to a new family and home. Although I agree with Diane on ruling out any medical problems first.
I'd work on other things right now, like bonding/attachment and leave the potty training til later. If you don't make an issue of it, it stops being a control lever for her. She can wear pull ups and when she makes a mess, she can clean herself up (might need a little help from you on some clean ups, but she needs to be responsible in cleaning up). Don't say anything other than things like "oh, you know where the pull ups are, and here is a washcloth to clean up" Getting a reaction out of you is a big part of it.
I wouldn't give her a consequence other than the cleaning her messes. It directly applies to the situation and in my opinion, kids learn/respond more to things directly applied, not things like missing dessert for something they did earlier in the day. Not at that age anyway...they don't grasp this well enough to get the message.
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I would not punish her for it, she is still only four, and has had a lot of change in her young life. It could be a control issue, it could be a medical issue, or she simply could have had a set back and is having accidents....these are not her fault and she should not be punished for them. I wouldn't even have her clean them up...she is still learning being punished for learning is not a good idea. I have a bio son who is four who, while potty trained at almost two, still has accidents on occasion during the night. They learn much faster if you make a big deal about how proud you are of them when they get it right, instead of getting upset when they get it wrong. If they become stressed about the issue things are only going to get worse! Now my adopted stepson, when he was about 10 began having some bathroom issues. We ruled out medical reasons and went through the whole nine yards with him. At that age, after being potty trained for so long (years) and THEN suddenly not wiping, we had him go in and clean up the mess when we found it. But honestly, if we just cleaned it up without saying anything the behavior disappeared much faster. He did it when he was highly stressed over something, and us getting upset and having him clean it up, or talking with him about it, made him stress more, which meant more messes to clean up. There was also the gratification for him that he was making us upset, he was controlling our emotions....once we took the reaction out of the equation....the behavior stopped. His chore in time became to simply clean the bathroom once a month, and he soon learned that if he controlled his behavior he didn't have much to clean up! She will come around in time, but for now, as others have stated, I would just back off, and when it is time to start again, focus on the positive, and not the mistakes. [url=http://stepparent.adoptionblogs.com]Stepparent Adoption Blog[/url]