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So here's how it went down:
She wet the bed the night before, I checked while she was in the shower because I could smell it.
She did not do a wash.
I took away the camping blankets that she never put away from when we got back Sunday from the camping trip that were on her floor, she had to wash those when we got back and just left them on her floor.
She went to bed before we did, as we were finishing a game in the living room.
I kept closing her door. I had told her earlier that she needed to keep the door closed due to the smell.
She was upset about that because she is obsessed about keeping her door open at night.
After we went to our room, I went back and closed her door two more times.
After the second time I went back to bed to read and she came into the doorway of my room and told me to stop closing her door and I told her why (again) it needed to be shut and she got mad and slammed my bedroom door.
I got up and went to her room and closed her door again.
She started to argue with me and she got up and sprayed perfume. I engaged in the arguement about me not wanted to smell it, she said she didn't do it even though she didn't deny it up to this point. . I told her I didn't want to smell perfume either and that it was my house and I didn't have to smell it if I didn't want to and that it wasn't my fault she forgot to do a wash (that's when she was denying it) and that she had to live with the smell if she forgot to do a wash. That was the consequence for forgetting to do a wash, that she had to keep her door closed and sleep with wet bedding.
Now I am up late at night losing sleep over this. I keep the arguement going in my head. I know I am not supposed to react and engage her behavior, but it's so much harder than it sounds. It was my husbands idea to stop reminding her and back off and let natural consequences do the teaching for a while since we have been so overwhelmed with her behaviors lately. She has taken major steps backward lately and we don't know why. We are about to switch therapists so we are just spending time distancing ourselves from her behaviors and catching up on some reading (RAD books).
But when her behaviors negatively affect us, it's hard not to react. Her room is right next to ours and the smell of urine is really keeping me awake. What else was I suppose to do? And now the smell of urine AND perfume will likely keep me awake the rest of the night unless I can figure out a way to air out the room. Our door stays open so we can keep an ear out for the kids or anything else at night and the cat likes to wander in and out of our room, otherwise he will scratch at the door all night long.:grr:
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I'm sorry, that must be rough.
Could there be a reason that she can't sleep with the door closed that maybe she can't verbalize? That she would be worried about not being able to hear, etc.? I don't know your child's history, but I know that this would be a concern for many abused children.
That being said, if it were me, I'd air out the room today and start doing a check every morning for wet bedsheets, so they don't sit all day and stink up the air.
For my child, at least, natural consequences around things like pee don't work. They just don't. She's 5 1/2 and will pee her pants and go about her business for as long as it takes until someone notices. She just doesn't care.
Good luck!
We can't air out her room right now because it's too hot outside, although maybe having a hot room will be a natural consequence while she is in there cleaning it. I will have to put my foot down and make her finish her chores tonight. Chores are due every weekend. My DH and I usually do our chores on Thursdays and finish up on Fridays so we have more free time on the weekends, and to set an example. But she drags it out the entire weekend or entire Saturday but this week she refused to do any at all. She doesn't get to do anything else until it's done, but she finds other ways of keeping herself occupied instead of doing her chores. For two years now, we have reminded her to start the washer if she had a wet night, I have gone in there and checked every morning. She waits until we about ready to leave before she puts it in the washer. It's more private for her to do it in the morning but for some reason she won't do it unless I check and remind her. So I just got tired of it. She keeps saying "I forgot". I keep telling her that needs to be the first thing you do when you take off your wet pajamas is go throw it in the washer. Most of the time the wet PJs end up on the floor of her room stinking up the carpet and she "forgets" to put them in with the blankets and sheets and I don't find out until later. And she slept in a wet bed and wet it again and didn't shower in the morning. I was so mad that I put trash bags over the car seat (new car) for her to sit on.
:laundry:
Oh, and our horrid pee smell was in the bathroom. When I took the laundry basket out of there they just started peeing on the floor. (and then said they missed the toilet! Lol)
So we decided to give them a very rehearsed, monotone reaction, the same thing every time. "The bathroom stinks. Here is the bucket, rag, and spray. You are done when I can't smell pee anymore."
Not to say we never got any payback for making them clean, but we I haven't smelt any pee for about 5-6 months now!! Yippee
I know how impossible it feels! Hang in there. Don't give up. Sometimes I start to see my kids as evil captors that are holding our whole family hostage. Then I have to remind myself that they are really just confused and terrified little kids.
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We have a real alarm system that tells the current status of all the doors, dings when they open during the day, and sounds an alarm at night. It is a big help in keeping the doors shut. All kids sleep with doors shut, for much bigger reasons than just the smell, but it does help with the smell too. I've been known to install door sweeps and carbon filters to contain malicious odors.Our bathroom pee'er and poop artist gets to clean the bathroom as his chore. He has found that his chore is easier if he doesn't make a mess of it first. That problem has long since gone. We never reacted more than an occasional casual comment "It looks like your chore will be a big job today," when getting him started on his chore.
I don't have solutions to everything -- of course -- but you have my deep empathy for how unrelenting and how difficult it all is. I have lived with a child with RAD. It was exponentially harder than I could have imagined.I have one tip which should help with part of this issue: the smell. I would be just like you, I wouldn't be able to get back to sleep if there were strong smells. There's a product from the company "OrangeMate", which is a *lime* spray. The lime will *literally* pull odors out of the air and eliminate them. I started out favoring the orange scent, until someone explained how the lime works. It is *amazing*. I keep cans in both bathrooms, and the kitchen. I use the orange to make the air smell good, but the lime to eliminate awful odors.Here's a link to their site. You *might* be able to find it locally (I usually don't, even in health food type places.) Or order somewhere online:[url=http://stores.intuitwebsites.com/CitrusMateInc/-strse-129/Air-Freshener-Natural-Citrus/Detail.bok]7 oz. Lime-Mate Mist®[/url]
Okay, so for some reason the bedwetting thing has escalated to the point where she hasn't washed her bedding and is sleeping in it again. She started having daytime accidents and denies it when asked about it. I was very loving and non confrontational when I asked her about it, I noticed she changed shorts and when I checked her room found the ones she was just wearing on the floor of her room wet with urine. This could have been happening for a while and I am just now finding out. There have been times when she does wash her bedding and there haven't been any overnight accidents and suddenly her room would stink and I couldn't figure out why. What would cause this reversal? What would be a possible trigger? I caught her sucking her thumb the other day too. Is it too mean to take the carpet out of the room? So far we've had to wrap the mattress in industrial plastic because she wasn't putting the mattress protector back on the mattress after washing it, and we've had to throw out a chair she slept on in her room after having an accident on that. So she throws the wet pajamas and clothes on the floor of her room and leaves it there for a week before it goes in the laundry. I've talked to her about making sure it doesn't land on the floor and goes into the washer right away, but she doens't do what I ask her to do. She doens't want to do the wash she just hides it in her closet. Also, she insists on leaving her bedroom door open at night but I can't stand the smell so we fight over keeping the door shut, she LOVES this control battle. I shut the door, she opens it, and we do this for hours. I want to tell her that as long she keeps peeing in her room and leaving wet clothes on the floor then at least keep the door shut so the rest of the family doens't have to smell it. But as soon we go to bed, she opens the door again, so how can I get her to keep it shut?
Get a door alarm!! It's awesome! When our RAD DD is in her room, we set the alarm- and if the alarm goes off it is a TERRIBLE loud noise. We set it at bedtime and my DH turns it off when he gets up in the morning (15 minutes after her alarm is set to go off). If DD sets off the alarm, she has 30 minutes in her room the next day for "rest" since she had to get up to open the door and I had to get up from my sleep to turn it off. If in the morning, if DD's room isn't clean with the bed made, and appropriate clothing for school, the door is closed and the alarm is set again. She is given ten more minutes to pull it together. This way she can start off the day without being resistant! For your DD, you may want to consider taking her dresser out of the room, and giving her a set of clothing for the day in exchange her her PJs. Then you are able to choose appropriate clothing for her, and her soiled clothing won't be lurking on the floor. I would definitely take the carpet out of her room, and either seal the concrete (as it is porous) or get some cheap tile to lay down (you could probably install it yourselves). It will be more noticeable to have puddles of urine on the floor, than to just have smelly carpet. Might be a bigger deterant for her. I know our DD seems to be immune to the smell of her urine, even though I can smell it down the hall!
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UPDATE: Her latest game is not flushing the toilet. She went number 2 and left it sit in the toilet for about 24 hours, she went the night before and I noticed the smell the next day but didn't flush it, left it sit in HER bathroom with the door closed and confronted her with it when she got home from school. She is now responsible for cleaning her own toilet. Then, we had to replace the drain in her bathtub because it wasn't opening and closing properly and the caulk had to dry overnight before she could use her shower, so we had her use the shower in our master bathroom, she used the toilet while she was in there and didn't flush! I know she's doing it on purpose, but WHY? She denies it when confronted. She doesn't use toilet paper, I have found clumps of poo in the washing machine trap before. I desperately want to rip the carpet out of her room. I told her that she could at least put the wet clothes in a plastic bad until she can do a load of laundry, that way her room wouldn't smell as bad and she could keep the door open. I told her that if she didn't flush again, that we would sell her nintendo 3DS and buy an automatic toilet bowl flusher. Not so funny now huh? Thanks for the suggestions about the door alarm, but that would be disastrous for a child who has serious fears about the door being shut at night, she was locked in her room and closet for days without food in her bio home. And that's only the beginning. So a door alarm would only make things worse. She would love setting it off too.
We dealt with the not wiping and flushing as well. We were pretty grossed out after finding several pots of poo in the toilet with no toilet paper and not flushed. Also, we would find poop hunks in the bathroom trash can.
We had Firecracker start setting the timer on the stove for 10 minutes. She was required to stay in the bathroom for 10 minutes EVERY time she went to the bathroom. This ensured she had "plenty of time to remember to wipe and flush". Occassionally, we would listen at the door to hear the toilet paper being pulled off the roll. After a couple days of doing well with the 10 minutes, we went down to 8, then 7, 6, and so on. Now, she uses the toilet appropriately and flushes and wipes.
That sucks about the stink emitting from her room- I'm afraid that even if you do take the carpet out, that will only remove some of the odor- it may have seeped into the concrete... If you can put in tile it would probably solve the smell! And I would sell the DS to pay for part of the tile!
Our STBAD was given a choice after she poisoned the dog (causing a $400 bill, of which I am having her pay half)- we can either sell the DS to raise her half, or she can do $200 worth of chores- she chose the chores. But when she starts complianing about the chores I promptly remind her of the other choice!
I have learned to not ask my RADlets any questions. Instead of "did you leave your wet clothes on the floor" or "why did you leave your wet clothes on the floor", I calmly say "I saw your wet clothes on the floor. Go get the carpet cleaner and a rag so you can scrub your carpet".
Raising kids with RAD is so hard. For mine quick and natural consequences are best. Maybe she can clean a bathroom each time she pees in her room to help her remember where she needs to go to the bathroom or to help her remember to flush. You could rotate between all the bathrooms in your house. One less chore for you to worry about that week!
Could shutting her door (due to stinky room) have triggered the escalating behaviors? She wasn't leaving poo in toilet before your required bedroom door to be shut, right? And you saw her sucking thumb...Sounds like she's regressing. You're right to wonder what the trigger was. :confused:
Mine USED to soak her bed (placement at 7 until maybe 11 or 12), but after bedwetting alarms, daily sheet and PJ rinsing (in water bucket in kids' bathtub--I helped initially, then just reminded her to do it...she preferred not to and would hide wet PJs instead, and make bed OVER wetness. Ugh.)
Anyway, now mine "leaks" just a bit and I've wondered if it's her lingering attachment issues, but I did a sleep study using a cool app on my iphone called "Sleep Cycle" (I hid fully-charged phone between mattresses, glass side down so she wouldn't know it was there. Had entire phone silenced with alarm set to 10 am, long after she'd be out of the room. Otherwise she'd find it and play with it, turning the app off. Also found that I didn't need to plug it in, my battery lasted entire night.)
Anyway, what I learned was that once my kiddo fell into stage 4 (deep) sleep (about 1.5 hours after going to bed), she STAYED there for 7.5 hours. Most of us cycle through the 4 stages every 1-1.5 hours, which is why we toss and turn, get up to use bathroom, etc. Apparently mine never did! This explains why she was soaking the bed when younger and why she still "leaks" (enough to soak underwear and get PJ bottoms a little wet, but not so much to get sheets wet so that I can smell it. It's only when I'm doing laundry that I find her stinky PJs.)
Another thought...mine also had major constipation from a sleep med we had been giving (to counteract the ADHD med that kept her awake). This gave her constipation and sticky, floaty poos that would not flush! Seriously, it would take 3 flushes just to get those huge honkers down!....Took her off med on a hunch, no more constipation, no more poo streaks/chunks in undies!
Of course mine still "leaks" at night (gotta figure out how to get her to cycle in sleep more normally), and still has attachment issues, but thankfully the pee one isn't as bad.
Just food for thought. Good luck!
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Try thinking of everything symbolically. The door to her bedroom is shut from the rest of the family home. Questioning her rather than talking to her. She wants to feel accepted despite her downfalls and mistakes.
Freud's theory really plays a part here. Any stage that was missed needs to be played through. She wants loved and treated like a newborn, toddler, child, etc.
I don't know how old she is now our when she was placed.
Over doing it can help them get through it and see how unnecessary that stage is so they can move on to the next and eventually catch up to their age. Yes a 7 yr old can be held like a newborn, handed each article of clothing to in turn be put in the washer just a you would with a toddler, etc. Suggest a potty break every 30 minutes. When there is an accident "hold her hand" and walk her through every detail. This is what works for my special ef kids.
Psychiatrist's say, " concentrate on increasing the responsiveness and sensitivity of the caregiver". Prior V, Glaser D.**Understanding Attachment and Attachment Disorders: Theory, Evidence and Practice.**London: Jessica Kingsley.* 2006
Find the time and go over board in a caring manner, sans spite, anger, frustration, or sarcasm.
I would pull out the carpet and put down a cheap linoleum flooring. No big cost when it needs to be replaced.
Have you considered locking up her clothing? If she is forced to ask for clean clothes you could be sure the clothing is being put in the hamper when dirty/wet. You could even give her two pair of pajamas a night in case of accident, but she would have to turn both pair in to you the next morning in exchange for her school clothes.
Would be a pain, but you wouldn't have the smell or need to close the bedreoom door.