The poop is back!!!!!

Okay, it frustrates me to no end for people to make excuses for this kind of behavior!!! Seriously, there is a toilet directly next to the shower. If the shower makes them need to poop, they could step out of the tub and be on the toilet in about 10 seconds!!! (not that you want to know, but the poop is not soft or runny like diarreah...it's the kind that would have to be pushed out!) If they were 4 or 5 I would be more understanding, explain why we don't do that and move on. They are NOT 4 or 5 years old and they are not developmentaly delayed or mentally retarded. They have RAD. They play this passive aggressive game with us constantly. My son had a big smile on his face when my husband told him to come to the bathroom. He knew exactly why he was being called in there and thought it was funny. He changed his tune to very fake tears when we told him he had to clean it up. (tears to try to convince us that his sister did it and when he went to take a shower he saw it and washed it down into the drain) Yeah, ok. This is a child who revels in getting his sister in trouble. And he wants us to believe that he saw that she had pooped in there and that he pushed his sister's poop down into the drain with his own two hands and didn't say a word about it to mom or dad. This is not a child who covers for his sister!! ever! We have talked about this endlessly...why pee and poop need to go in the toilet, germs, sickness, babies taking baths in the very same tub they just took a crap in, why we need to wash our hands...blah blah blah I have explained until I am ready to beat my head against the wall! My younger two cannot even use their bathroom. I have had to move their stuff out of there into my bathroom. No more master bath for mom and dad!! urrrrr minor, I know, but still frustrating that my littles keep getting pushed out because my big kids want to act like 2 yr olds....and get a kick out of being disgusting. I walked in the bathroom one day and my son was holding my 4 yr olds toothbrush :confused: I don't even WANT to know what he was doing with it, I just threw it away and moved her things out of there.:hissy: This stuff is HARD to deal with. I need support. I need people who understand, because no one in my "real world" gets it besides my husband and my mom. Supervising bath time would solve the problem. Not a bad suggestion... but not feasible for us. My DH works 3-4 evenings a week and I am here alone with 4 kids. One is special needs and needs constant supervision and the other is a baby! I am done giving these two my undivided attention every moment they are home. My baby didn't get a freaking bath all week last week because by the time I got the big kids settled and in bed, he had crashed in the living room floor!:( We don't give them a big reaction (anymore). We don't spank them, beat them, abuse them, scream at them, or anything else that would cause this kind of behavior. They are simply pissed off that they did not get to stay with bio grandma and grandpa who spoiled them rotten and never said NO! 3 1/2 years of this. They will not move on. They will talk about it. They sit and giggle through therapy. They bring up stupid crap that doesn't even matter to them just to divert the therapist from getting to the real issues. I try to talk to them and they give me a blank stare. If they are not in control, your life is going to be hell. Ugh. That turned out to be a huge rant. Sometimes you just don't even know what's bottled up until you let it out! Thanks for the mini-therapy :o

Let me preface this with I am not a professional by no means, this is just what I would do.Try giving the little ones baths first then put them down to sleep. Make the two older ones stay up late to take their showers. One at a time. No more baths. They have lost that priviledge. Even if they fall asleep, make them get up for their showers, one at a time. They will hate you getting them up, or having them shower when all they really want to do is sleep. They wont have the energy to do anything but shower. And since the other two little ones will be asleep, youll be able to supervise in the beginning. When they realize that they can control this situation by proving that they have moved past this disgusting attention getting ploy, they can go back to showering at regular times.I would end the showering or bathing together regardless.Good luck and God Bless.Tam

I had a FD with RAD who did this. She figured other 'creative' ways to get around my attempts to stop her. This is what finally worked; I told her she could poop in the shower anytime she wanted. However, if she did then she had to clean the shower. Every inch of it. AND because she had poop on her hands and probably her feet she then needed to clean the floor. AND since she needed to wash her hands the sink was probably dirty too so she would need to clean the sink. AND since the toilet was the only thing left, well she needed to clean that too in order to help her remember to use it next time. She had to stay in the bathroom until I approved the cleaning job. That worked so well that I started assigning other 'dirty jobs for dirty attitudes' for all of the kids (ie poop scoop the yard for backtalk). Gets a lot of my most hated chores done weekly by someone other than myself. It also helps keep me calm when my kids act up because I know there is a chore about to be crossed of my to-do list.

(((hugs))) to you!

Great idea!

If nothing else works at all maybe make them bathe or shower in there swimsuits with the door open..at least they could wash under there arms and behind the ears..give em some baby wipes for there bottoms! I don't know all I can say is *hugs* that sounds like a very tough situation:(

Just make absolutely sure it's not something physical. My 1st cousin was 10 and still pooping and hiding it. When they finally told a medical dr., it turned out he had a nerve problem in his rectum and could not actually control the poop. But in his panic, would hide it and lie because of fear of getting yelled at again. He ended up getting placed out of his mothers household anyaway, but he was blamed for years for being defiant when it was all medical in that case.

I like bible mom's idea...that would help solve the "control" issue.

I would discontinue baths. Showers only. I would take everything out of the bathroom except what is essential to shower. I would make them clean whenever poop is left. Meaning, they had to do it to my standards and nothing else happens until its done.Hate to say this but - you can't stop it. Its their way of exercising control and you can't do anything about it. You have to make it so that it doesn't bother you (as much as possible). It needs to be put back on them.Are they in therapy?

Rad stinks. (hadn't intended a pun, but um yeah, literally stinks, cause they pee and poop in such odd places.) It stinks for your littles, at least you have another bathroom you can use. My daughter won't use the same shower as her rad brother because he pees, poops and throws up in there and she is too grossed out to use that bathroom at all. He does not get toys and gets showers only now. I leave only his three in one shampoo/body wash/conditioner in there (and I actually use an old bottle and put a little of the soap in and water it down because he likes to use half a bottle at each bath. He has to clean the bathroom after his shower and I have to check it. If it takes too long one night we simply start him earlier the next night. For a while last year he was going to the shower right after school. Then when it was clean he got homework time if he finished in time or if it took him until dinner time he got dinner and then homework. If he choose to not do it I wrote a letter to the teacher explaining that he chose not to do the homework because he took four hours to shower and clean up after himself. I told her he cold stay in during recess to do it. (I had talked to the teacher ahead of time and worked with her on what would work) Anyway, that did seem to help. Though I will say that when I stopped him from doing it in the bathroom he began collecting pee and poop in his room. In water bottles, lunch boxes, and whatever he could find. Bleh!

I think you are right Lorraine. All these suggestions sound reasonable enough. They would work with typical kids. But not RAD kids. At least not my RAD kids. They don't care how much discomfort it causes them. It seems to be worth it to them as long as they have let me know I can't control them. Our therapist likened it to a dog that trashes the house, poops, and pees everywhere when you leave them home alone. My kids do not know how to express themselves... So the poop does it for them I suppose?! I desperately want to stop letting this stuff get to me so much. But the poop is only 1 of many issues we are having. They fight everything! Little things that would be so easy to just comply with... NOPE! Every day is a battle. People say: "Don't make it a battle." How do I do that when we are talking about basic stuff that is non negotiable! Brushing teeth, using shampoo, Wearing a clean uniform instead of getting one out of the dirty clothes, not doing cartwheels in the living room, eating!!!, not taking their little sister off alone, doing their homework, not smuggling toys into their backpack, telling the truth, not taking things that don't belong to them. ALL every day battles!

My two oldest adopted kids, now 18 and 21 used to pee in weird places...closest, toyboxes and my favorite...laundry baskets! the older one used to randomly poop in his pants until he was about 11, we think it was connected to the sexual abuse they suffered as very young children. (they came to us at 6 and 7 years old, bio brothers, came to us 3 years apart.) I am happy to report that they simply outgrew it..they are both decent young men and use toilets 100% of the time! Until i read your post, i hadn't though about that in a while. I guess what I am saying is, sometimes these bizarre behaviors just go away on their own...usually related to peer pressure and peer acceptance.

Perhaps they will have to take showers in the morning... meaning you will have to wake them up early in case the poop they would have time to clean it up. everytiem they poop int eh shower they have to get up 30 mins earlier..

Thank you! I need hope again!

I was thinking about the "why" of this, and I'm just totally off in left field most of the time, but I wonder, in addition to being a control issues, if this isn't a really basic "animal" instinct. Feces would keep others away, and since we're dealing with RAD kids here who want nothing more than to drive others away, I wonder if there could be some deeply ingrained instinctual "survival" mechanism? Of course this doesn't explain the randomly urinating side of it... unless they are marking their territory! LOL!