CONTENTS

This blog is now complete and provides as detailed an account as possible of my childhood soiling problem.

I have also written a single post blog for children who soil, telling my story in simple language: The Boy Who Pooed His Pants

You can click on the post titles below to either read the articles in the order posted or go straight to areas that are of interest to you.

INTRODUCTION

WHY I POOED MY PANTS

SO MANY CHILDREN

HOW I STOPPED SOILING MY PANTS

OUT AND ABOUT

MY FINAL ACCIDENT

SOILING AT SCHOOL

STAYING IN MESSY PANTS

THE "DON'T CARE" ATTITUDE

THE DAY I POOED MYSELF ON PURPOSE

A POOEY BOTTOM AT NURSERY

HELP!!!! MY CHILD HAS ENCOPRESIS

ERIC - THE CHILDREN'S BOWEL & BLADDER CHARITY

THE RIGHT TO GO

'A BOY LIKE YOU' AND 'A GIRL LIKE YOU'

'NEWS FROM THE LOOS'

'HELP! I POO MY PANTS'

POSITIVE OUTCOMES

Please click here if you wish to contact the author of this blog

THE RIGHT TO GO

Imagine this: you are spending the evening at the theatre with a group of friends.  You are enjoying the show, but the drinks you had during the interval have inconveniently made their way to your bladder.  Afraid that you are not going to be able to wait until the final curtain, and having no wish to suffer the discomfort of a full bladder for longer than is necessary, you decide to excuse yourself and make use of the theatre’s toilets.  Getting up, you clamber over your friends and the other patrons on your row and make your way to the nearest exit out from the auditorium. 

You are in for a shock, however.  An usher is standing in front of the exit, blocking your escape, and he refuses to let you pass.  Slightly embarrassed, you explain that you need the toilet and when he still refuses you say that you are desperate and cannot wait.  He is implacable.  ‘You should have gone during the interval,’ he says.  ‘You’ll have to wait until the show is over now.’

It is impossible for a child to
fully concentrate on her 

schoolwork if she needs to
go to the toilet. (c)

Defeated you return to your seat.  Maybe it would have been wise to have made use of the facilities during the interval, but you didn’t really need to go then and, in any case, the queues were fairly long and you have never liked a crowd when you use the loo.  You resume your seat, but you are unable to enjoy the rest of the play.  Your concentration is focussed solely on the steadily increasing pain from your bladder, and your growing fear that you are going to have an embarrassing accident in front of your friends, which will probably be part of the conversation of dinner parties for years to come.  You also hope that your companions do not notice your hand placed firmly in your crotch, and your legs crossed ever tighter as you desperately try to avoid wetting yourself in your seat.  The only other thought occupying your mind is your sense of anger towards the usher.  What gives one human the right to deny another access to the toilet?  Surely being able to use the toilet when you need to is a basic human right, isn’t it?

Wetting his pants in the
classroom is one of the most
 embarrassing things that
can happen to a child. (c)

The above scenario may seem ridiculous, but every day in schools children face a similar dilemma, needing to wee or poo during lesson time but being refused permission to use the toilet because ‘you should have gone at breaktime,’ or not bothering to ask because they know the answer will be in the negative.  Such children are then unlikely to be able to concentrate on their work, as the increasingly strong signals from their bladder or bowel occupies their attention, and they worry about whether they are going to have an accident in front of their peers.  For a child who is past nursery age, wetting or soiling your pants in class is one of the most humiliating experiences imaginable, and peers are not likely to let the poor kid forget their accident in a hurry.  And yet the child has done nothing wrong except needing the toilet at a slightly inconvenient time.

Every parent will know that when a
young child needs to go, he needs to
go NOW, but watering the grass is not
an option for him in the classroom. (c)

For several years I did volunteer work at various local primary schools, working with children aged from 3 to 11.  If a child asked me if they could go to the toilet I always said ‘yes’ without hesitation.  The teachers, however, were not always so accommodating.  In a Year 2 class in one school a 6 year old boy repeatedly asked during a lesson if he could use the toilet but the teacher refused him permission: ‘playtime is the time for going to the toilet,’ she told him.  The poor boy had to keep returning to his desk, increasingly desperate and unable to do much of the task he had been set.  In a different school, a 7 year old girl had to wait to use the toilet because of the rule that only one child of each sex from the class were allowed to go to the toilet at a time.  The girl was clearly desperate for a wee as she hovered near the classroom door, unable to keep still and lifting up first one foot and then the other as she tried to avoid the humiliation of wetting herself in front of her classmates.  It is one of the most harrowing sights I have ever seen. 

Let's encourage kids to poo at school
if they need to. (c)

As well as the risk of having a embarrasing accident in the classroom, there are also health issues involved in forcing a child to wait to use the toilet.  Withholding urine can cause urinary tract infections (UTIs) and continence problems, and, as we have seen in my case, withholding poo can cause constipation and soiling problems.  The need to poo, in particular, can strike at any time, and a child should be encouraged to open their bowel as soon as possible when the need arises.  Many children who otherwise have no toilet issues are reluctant to use the school toilets when they need to poo, preferring to wait until they get home, by which time the urge might have gone, risking constipation problems, or they may have soiled.  Personally, I think that children should be encouraged ask to go to the toilet when they need to poo during lessons and should certainly not be denied permission.  I’ve thought up my own soundbite for a campaign around this issue: ‘It’s Cool to Poo at School!’

You can probably guess that I am fully supportive of ERIC’s ‘The Right to Go’campaign, which calls for schoolchildren to have access to safe and hygienic school toilets at all times, as well as highlighting every child’s right to good care for a continence problem at school.

Children should have
access to safe and hygienic 
school toilets at all times. (c)

Of course, it’s better for the smooth running of a lesson if children use the toilets during their breaks and I’m not suggesting that they should not do this.  But there will always be times when the need to go does not coincide with playtime or lunchtime and all teachers should make allowances for this.  Also, some children will feel uncomfortable going to the toilets when they are crowded, particularly for a poo.  Such children should not be made to suffer because of this and arrangements should be made to allow them to attend to their toilet needs in a manner that is comfortable for them.  And yes, there will be the odd pupil who deliberately uses the excuse of needing the toilet to get out of lessons they do not enjoy, or for nefarious activities such as smoking, but these should be dealt with on an individual basis, and not by punishing the whole class by stopping everyone going to the toilet in lesson time.

I’m sure that there will be teachers who disagree with me and predict chaos in the classroom if they allow their pupils unrestricted access to the toilets.  But ultimately it comes down to the question I posed in my imaginary scenario at the theatre: what gives one human the right to deny another access to the toilet?  

ERIC - THE CHILDREN'S BOWEL & BLADDER CHARITY

There are many excellent charities operating in the UK and across the world.  Everyone has their favourite, often based on personal experience or circumstances.  There are many charities I admire, particularly those working to improve the lives of children, such as the NSPCC and Barnardos.  But without doubt my favourite charity is ERIC – The Children’s Bowel & Bladder Charity, a small UK based charity which does brilliant work in an unglamorous area.

ERIC provides a lifeline for parents
 being driven potty by their child's
wetting or soiling problems (c)

Set up by The Children’s Society in 1988, ERIC, which now stands for Education and Resources for Improving Childhood Continence, originally specialised in helping families to deal with bedwetting in children and teenagers, but has since expanded to cover other toilet problems in young people such as daytime wetting, constipation and soiling. 

From its offices in Bristol in the west of England, ERIC’s helpline, website and publications are a lifeline for parents and children dealing with continence issues.  Wetting and soiling issues in children and teenagers are a distressing problem for the young person concerned as well as for their parents, who often feel unable to discuss their child’s condition with their families and friends, and sometimes also have difficulty dealing with the medical profession.  ERIC’s helpline, in particular, is a great help to parents both in providing a listening, non-judgemental ear and offering expert advice.  Their staff and volunteers are happy to talk about wee and poo all day and have helped countless desperate families over the years.

But it is not only because of the excellent work that they do that I love ERIC so much.  They are also great in looking after their supporters.  They do not bombard you with requests for donations, but treat you with the human touch.  I have had several personal emails, and even handwritten letters, from various members of staff.  They keep you updated on the work they are doing and really make you feel valued.

The only sad thing is that ERIC was not around when I was a child.  I’m sure with their help I would have been able to overcome my soiling problem quicker, and they would also have been a great source of comfort and help to my mother.  Although she often got cross with me when I had accidents, my mother is a wonderful person, always helping others and devoted to her family.  My soiling undoubtedly caused her anguish and, like me, she probably thought that no other school aged child still had accidents in his pants like I did.  There was no internet to turn to for information and, like so many parents, she felt unable to discuss my poo problems with others.  Being able to speak to an organisation like ERIC would, I’m sure, have brought a great sense of relief to her.

Advice on toilet training is another
of ERIC's specialities (c)

ERIC can also help with potty training, and their online shop sells bedwetting alarms, travel potties, vibrating watches and even pee and poo soft toys and keyrings.  They also sell a wide range of protective pants and swimwear suitable for containing poo accidents.  And finally, they have a wide range of books covering all aspects of children’s toileting, including my own books for older children who soil, A Boy Like You and A Girl LikeYou, which will be the subject of a future post.

For more information please go to ERIC’s website, www.eric.org.uk, or click on the box on this website.

ERIC, 36 Old School House, Britannia Road, Kingswood, Bristol, BS15 8DB, United Kingdom.  ERIC is a Registered Charity (no 1002424) and a Company Limited by Guarantee (no 2580579) registered in England and Wales.

MY FINAL ACCIDENT

It’s probably no coincidence that my final accident was also one of my most embarrassing.  It happened in public on holiday in Scarborough in the north of England when I was 11 years and 3 months old.

Aged 10, I was still not
completely free of poo accidents.

By this stage my accidents were few and far between, but I was still not completely clear of them.  One evening during that week long holiday my parents and I were on a walking tour of a beautiful park.  Around half way around I soiled myself.  I had been avoiding using public toilets for bowel movements during the holiday, thinking I could always wait until we returned to our chalet with its private facilities.  But my body had other ideas.  As always, I did not feel myself doing the deed but I felt the poo in my pants and knew that I’d had another accident.  Shortly afterwards the smell told my parents what I had done.

My mother was carrying no spare pants for me and, in any case, I was now a bit too old to be taken into the Ladies to be changed (my father is disabled and could not have changed me.)  There was also no way my mother was going to risk taking me behind a bush to try to clean me up.  I’m grateful for this, I think I would have died of humiliation if anyone had chanced upon me being changed and seen my bare pooey bottom.  There was nothing else for it, I had to walk the remainder of the tour in messy pants.

I did not enjoy the rest of the park one bit.  I was due to start secondary school in a few weeks time and I would soon be hitting puberty, but here I was in public, with lots of adults and younger children nearby, smelling of poo, walking around with my own waste sitting in my underwear, feeling like an unreliable toddler and waiting to be told off again when we returned to our chalet.  I don’t know what the others in the park thought of an 11 year old boy who had clearly messed his pants – no-one stayed near me long enough to express an opinion!

I hated being made to sit on the toilet
 after I had been cleaned up. (c)

Back at the chalet, my mother changed my pants.  It was always my mother who changed me, I can’t ever remember anyone else ever doing so.  If you are thinking that I should have been cleaning up my own messes long before this age, then you are probably right.  However, I don’t think I had it easy just because I didn’t have to change myself.  Standing lower half naked in front of my mother when I was less than two years away from being a teenager, being changed like I was a toddler and scolded at the same time was an embarrassing and unpleasant experience.

My mother often made me sit on the toilet to try to poo after she had finished cleaning me up, and she did so on this day, leaving me on my own while she took away my soiled clothes.  When I was younger I hated this, and always begged her to let me get off.  It always seemed like a punishment and I rarely produced anything as I had already done it all in my pants.

This time I sat there thinking.  This couldn’t go on.  I was 11, I was about to start ‘big’ school, I couldn’t keep having accidents like this.  What if the next one happened in the classroom at my new school?

Of course at the time I did not know this was going to be my final accident, indeed it was a long time afterwards before I knew for sure that my soiling problem was finally at an end.  It took a bad accident in public to make me resolve to complete the journey to becoming fully clean that I had begun several years before.  I never avoided public toilets again.

If you would like to read a post about the emotional aspects of helping a child with soiling problems, then try this post from the SuperMom Blues: Raising a Child with Encopresis.

HOW I STOPPED SOILING MY PANTS

Not surprisingly, one of the main questions parents ask me is how I eventually overcame my soiling problems.  I outlined this briefly in my first post, Why I Pooed My Pants, but many parents have appreciated a more detailed explanation. 

I can only write about my own experiences and, in my case, the effort to become clean had to come from my own willpower.  My parents never sought medical advice about my soiling and I was never on regular medication for it.  My mother did occasionally give me a laxative, usually Chocolate Ex-Lax, when I was badly constipated and had not used the toilet for several days.  This did make me poo, but I usually had no time to reach the bathroom and resulted in some very messy accidents in my pants.

The habits I picked up in my toddler years
stayed with me for a long time.

As I previously stated¸ for a long time I didn’t make the connection between withholding and soiling my pants.  Even after I had made the connection between withholding my poo and having dirty pants I continued to have problems for a long time.  Avoiding going to the toilet when I didn't feel like it had become a habit and like all habits, such as thumb sucking in children or smoking in adults, it was difficult to break.

By the time I had made the connection I had pooed my pants on numerous trips and many times at home, been stinky around other children and often suffered from constipation and stomach aches.  I hated the moment when I knew that I had messed myself and would soon be told off again.  But I still sometimes withheld when I felt the need to poo.  Like so many children I often thought only about the present moment, not the time later in the day, or on the next day or the day after, when I would suffer the indignity of having my pants checked before being cleaned up like a toddler by my mother and scolded at the same time.

Aged 7, I believed I was the only
school aged child in the world
who pooed his pants and began
to feel I was babyish and disgusting.

By the age of 7 I was starting to feel really babyish.  I also began to think of myself as a disgusting child for pooing myself instead of using the toilet.  I truly believed that I was the only school aged child in the world who dirtied his pants and my problem was making me really unhappy.  This was not helped by my mother threatening to ask my teacher to tell everyone in my class at my new junior school what I did and saying that they would laugh at me.  I don't think she would have carried out this threat but the thought horrified me.

Ultimately, however, the initiative to deal with the situation came from myself and my desire to be like other children.  I started making more of an effort to solve my problem, forcing myself to go to the toilet at home even if my initial instinct was to withhold.  Also, in my first term at junior school I pooed in the boys toilets for the first time in my life.  For most 7 year olds this would be no big deal, but it takes courage when you've spent years avoiding sitting on school toilets.  On my way out two older boys entering the toilets complained about the smell: 'I bet he's done a poo,' one of them said.  Yes, I had, and I was proud of it!  I had done a poo at school and it wasn't in my pants!  And I was happy to leave the stink behind in the boys toilets this time rather than carry it around with me!

Making the change wasn't easy, the withholding habit I had picked up as a 3-year old had become deeply ingrained, and there were times when I relapsed and had accidents.  Also, my bowel needed time to recover from years of withholding and I sometimes soiled myself without being given any warning that I had needed to use the toilet.   However, by my 8th birthday I was largely clean at home as well as at school, where I'd been lucky enough to have few problems anyway.

Most of my accidents after that happened on trips away from home.  My toilet problems while out and about will be the subject of my next post.