Confused about what the best approach is with soiling pants?

It sounds like this little guy needs to start with postive approaches and empathy. He should clean it up. Washhis clothes. Clean up any residual in the bathroom. All directed with love and care. If need be he could set up a basket of underwear in the restroom for ease. Because this is an emotional issue, not defiance- IMHO- you can just help him meet his needs. Are there specific triggers when it happens? Like...right after having a good time with his sister, or before bed or bath? Those triggers will be huge insight into where he is with this. I'd also offer a choclate or small reward on days when he stays clean. Therapy- asap. For both your kiddos. My 8 year old is emotionally 6 in a lot of ways, and was about 2 or 3 emotionally when she first came home 16 months ago. It's important to meet them where they are so they can move through those stages of development in as healthy a way as possible. Best of luck- It will be ok, he CAN get past this, but it may be a while.

Check out he might have encopresis. I think there are 2 types.([url=http://www.answers.com/topic/encopresis]Encopresis: Definition from Answers.com[/url] One is involuntary soiling. Our soon to be adopted son was DX with encopresis but he lives her now for a month and have no problems so far. Our son was also dx with PTSD and anxiety.

I agree with flowed--check out encopresis. My friend's 8 year old son was having this problem and it ended up being encopresis. It was fairly easy to fix after a few enemas and mineral oil for a couple of weeks. Stress and other things can cause kids to withhold their bowel movements which leads to this embarrassing problem. Good luck to you!

After talking with his dr who diagnosed him with encoparesis, he recommended fiber tablets every day which worked beautifully until yesterday (we went almost a month with no problems) Not sure what triggered yesterday's issues but both the kids were HORRIBLE all day. B was lying all day about dumb things, fighting with her brother, D was being just plain obstinate all day and then was playing in his room and pooped his pants. It was such a frustrating day for us. My husband called a family meeting after supper and we decided to try a new tactic with the kids. Now they have to earn everything instead of my system which was the 'house rules' system where if they break a rule they draw the associated number of cards. We were doing chores all day with that system - they couldn't be good long enough. So we are now doing my husbands idea and we'll see how that goes. I'm really frustrated though and wondering if this is normal - we had a bad period about 2-3 wks in and then it was really good for awhile. Now we are approaching the 2 month mark and had a really bad week.

I bet his encompresis has to do with stress somehow. It's something he can control, until he loses control of it from withholding. Poor guy! My friend's son who had this issue was going through some hard stuff at school when his got really bad. I hope you get to the bottom of all of this!

Our 11 year old has this problem, and always has, according to his records. We had him in to see a doctor about it. They didn't do much, but concluded it was psychological. We've tried to address it in therapy without success. We ended up having an opportunity to do a session with Dr. Dan Hughes, author of Building the Bonds of Attachment. He connected it with a baby's behavior and the fact that our son is also like a toddler in so many other ways. He more or less told our son that it was okay for him to do this and he could stop someday when he feels ready for the next stage in his life.That's the approach we've taken ever since. We make it clear that we accept him this way and it makes no difference to us. We communicate "No rush and no problem". However we don't make it easy for him either. He has to do the appropriate cleanup and suffer other natural consequences. We control his clothes and select his outfit each day. We have to do that because he stashes soiled underwear in his room so we need to have the means to "trade" new for old. We don't know if he will someday change. But we couldn't do anything about it anyway so this seems to be as good an approach as any. We've looked for patterns and have found that more often than not he does it after having had a lot of fun. Interestingly, we have found that we can control whether he soils or wets. He will do whichever we have made the required cleanup easier for and completely stop the other. But no matter what we do he will not stop both, at least not for more than a few days. We now make the cleanup roughly the same either way so we get a random mix.

Our son was not potty trained at 6 when we adopted him. The foster mom had some mixed results. His siblings including older brothers were not potty-trained either. It was from abuse and neglect. It took awhile, but after about a year he just got it under control himself. We did make him clean up poopy pants in the sink before dropping them in dirty clothes basket. We also made him sit on toilet (just gentle reminder) for about 10 minutes after breakfast every morning which is most natural time for all humans to go. As a foster mom, you may not have a lot of influence here because until he is in permanent placement, it will be hard for him to become fully relaxed and secure enough to know he is safe. Of course, it goes without saying to NEVER yell at them or threaten them for the problem. That's what may have caused the problem to begin with. I do NOT agree with giving enemas for the problem. It's just another violation. Patience and encouragement is a more humane solution.

Our first step was getting him to realise, his underwear is soiled and now it needs to be changed; (to get used to being in clean dry underwear) Also, after meals he had to use the bathroom, sit until he had a bowel movement or for at least 15 minutes - he was allowed to read or play handheld games. But like most, since it was a control issue too, we realised it will depend on him and when he is ready. To encourage you, it does stop. :banana: