8 years old and too embarrassed to poo!

[Dodger78]

I don't know if there's anyone who understands but I'm running out of ideas and hope!

Since Year 3 my 8 year old boy has been too embarrassed to go to the loo at school and now at home! When I ask him if he needs the loo or has had an accident he lies to me. We did a reward scheme where every time he had a poo he got a reward which was working until he got bored of the rewards and now hes gone back to having accidents.

He says he would rather poo his pants then go to the loo as he seems to think its less embarrassing as nobody notices. Hes quite happy to wash his pants afterwards but obviously gets very upset when you make him go sort himself after having an accident.

He refuses to go to the doctor and doesn't like talking about the problem. All he wants is to do is ignore the whole situation and pretend its not happening and doesn't understand why we're making such a big deal about.

[Cath1981]

I’m sorry your son is struggling with this. My son is 9 now and never really got the hang of pooing in the toilet. He would also lie about it and avoid the issue.

A couple of years ago after seeing the gp and continence nurse and ruling out a physical problem, we took him to a psychotherapist. She worked with him on his emotions surround what ‘came out’ of him.

It was a long process and he had his last session at the end of July. Now he sits on the toilet 3 times a day and often catches a poo. We’ve had a couple of occasions where he has taken himself for a poo at school(!) and he now only has very occasional accidents.

He used to feel a lot of shame surrounding the toilet but now he is confident and self-assured which is lovely to see.

Without help I just wasn’t able to communicate with him about this in a helpful way and vice versa.

You’re not alone in this and I really hope you and your son find the thing that works for you x