Continence - pull ups and school

[MrsSquirrel]

Meeting with school recently, they have said Ed Psych is reluctant to assess our son (8) as he is spending so much time up and down to the loo it may mask other issues. We are due a report as he has dyspraxia and possibly other stuff going on too (high risk of dyslexia for example).

His teacher also says it is difficult to help him catch up (he's a few years behind peers) when continence issues are so frequent it is disrupting his learning. I do have some sympathy with this.

A couple of things I want to ask you all though - will he be at risk of teasing if he has a pad/pull ups? He's quite young for his age, so might not realize that kids could use this as a point to make fun of. What can we do to minimize this? Also the risk that it makes him a bit lazy about going to the loo when he needs a wee (we see this when we use pull ups for car journeys, he just stops bothering to go to the loo). He does go 20 times a day, so maybe he feels pull ups are a rest from the norm! School suggested maybe we just do mornings (maths/English time).

Any thoughts very welcome.

[Piper2017]

It will be up to you both to decide what works best but I thought I would let you know what we do.My daughter is 7 and uses continence pads for school,it saves her the embarrassment of leaking through her uniform several times a day.we use pull ups at night,long journeys and things like for parties.hope you figure out what will work best for you.

[Frustratedmum1]

Hi. My son has pull ups for school. We buy boxer shorts which cover them up and also we have to go into school after he has his lunch to sit him on the toilet and help him change if necessary. Since we have done this my son has more freedom and the pull ups seem to mask any smells. The other thing I find is by going in you can monitor what is going on. This is pain when trying to juggle work as Well.

After our son was really bad he was struggling to get through a school day and we did half days for his main subjects. We also asked for work so we could do it at home with him. He is now doing full days again.

You need to just try and do what you feel is right and it is alot of trial and error. I find the more open you can be with the school. They tend to be a bit more helpful.

[MrsSquirrel]

Ok, so I am in between a rock and a hard place. Continence nurses have said its fine for DS (9) to wear pads at school but only to catch accidents on way to loo, they advocate that he should have option to go to loo at any time as well. School are understandably frustrated that over suspected over active bladder is causing a lot of disruption - he is years behind peers - and the ed psych won't assess for other stuff aside from dyspraxia (diagnosis already in place for some years now) like dyslexia and so on - to see if there are other barriers to learning we don't recognise yet, unless continence is taken out of the picture - they say it could be the cause of delay/masking things. I do wonder if this is more school delaying tactics as I have been asking for over a year now and ed psych not cheap.

They ideally want him to have pad on in key lessons but to limit his trips to the loo, some of which they think is just him getting out of xyz. Nurse says he's at mercy of his bladder and should be allowed to go as many times per hour as he wants/needs to. Next SEN meeting is Friday. WWYD? Pads are the way forward, but do we go with what school want in order to get green light for assessments. Feels a bit like we are being pushed this way. I can totally see their point in that it is hard to help a child catch up when they are going to loo every 15 mins (clinic have observed this and scanned/measured - he voids tiny amounts)

Feel like am at end of tether today with hospitals and schools.

Want to move to desert island and encounter no more conflicting opinions of professionals!