'NEWS FROM THE LOOS'

Raising awareness of encopresis, and children’s toilet problems generally, has long been an aim of mine.  As of August 2019, this blog has had nearly 35,000 hits.  While many viewers of these pages will be parents of kids with encopresis, I imagine that some people reading this blog will be learning about this condition for the first time.  Other resources, mostly online, have also meant that more adults have heard of encopresis than was previously the case, although it remains one of the lesser known juvenile medical conditions.

There is one group of people, however, who remain almost universally unaware of childhood soiling issues, and that is other children.  Unless they have the condition

The front cover of
'News from the Loos'

themselves, or have a close friend or relative who does, then they are likely to assume that all kids are perfectly able to poo in the toilet and avoid having accidents shortly after they come out of nappies.  They are therefore likely to consider any kid aged around 5 and above who soils his pants to be a ‘baby’ and a legitimate target for ridicule.  The same thing applies to peers who suffer from daytime wetting problems, especially if it happens on multiple occasions.  Most kids know that some children wet the bed, but hardly any seem to know that some also have wetting problems during the day.

It’s probably not surprising therefore, though rather upsetting, that many parents of children who have continence issues often report that their offspring are teased or bullied at school and find it hard to make friends.  From all I have heard about the extent of soiling and wetting problems, I imagine that in most primary school classes there is at least one student who suffers from them, and probably several in some classes.

I therefore decided to write a book of short stories, for kids aged 7 to 11, set around the toilets of a primary school, designed to raise awareness amongst children of wetting and soiling issues, in the hope that reading it will make them more sympathetic to the plight of their classmates who suffer from these problems.  If it also helped educate parents and teachers on this subject then this would be a valuable bonus.

One of the posters in the book,
designed to promote good
bladder and bowel health. (c)

Another thing which I have found alarming is reports that many children drink only a minimal amount of fluids during the school day to try to avoid having to go to the toilet, with potentially damaging consequences to their health.  Worse still, a lot of kids refused to use school toilets if they needed to poo, with some even regarding doing a poo at school, or at a friend’s house, to be a social taboo.  It seems that my message that ‘It’s Cool to Poo at School’ needed to be spread to a much wider audience than just children with encopresis. 

I decided, therefore, that my new book should also promote good bladder and bowel health, at school and elsewhere, amongst ALL children.  As with my previous books, I would not be shy in talking about weeing and pooing, and the children in the book would set a good example in always using the school toilets, whether they needed to go Number 1 or Number 2.  Of course, the stories do not only involve bodily functions and also cover themes such as friendship, honesty and helping others.  Menstruation is featured in one story, as I believe that both girls and boys should learn about periods before the age when a girl is likely to start having them.

The toilets at Parktree Primary School, where the stories are set, are unisex, which made it easy for the girl and boy characters to interact.  They are kept clean and well maintained and children have access to them at all times.  The teachers are aware that a child’s need to use the toilet does not always conveniently occur at break times and allow their students to leave their lessons if they need to do so.  Additionally, the staff work with the families of children who have toilet issues to help them cope at school.  This is an idealised situation, but it is an ideal to which I think all schools should strive and which parents should demand.  As I said in my post The Right to Go, every child should have the right to use a safe, hygienic school toilet whenever nature calls.

One of the posters in the book,
designed to discourage teasing
and bullying of children
with continence issues. (c)

I also designed a series of posters to go between the stories, mostly featuring kids of a similar age to the intended readership.  The children in these posters ask readers to wash their hands, drink enough water and wipe their bottoms from front to back.  They also offer advice for relieving constipation and urge kids not to tease their classmates who wet or soil themselves at school.

To make the stories seem realistic and help convince children that their peers really do have problems like the ones described in the book, I invented a School Librarian, Penny Spender, from whose notes the stories were written.  The book and the school, however, are wholly fictitious, although a few of the stories are inspired by actual events.

The resulting book, News from the Loos, will, I hope, in some small way, help to end the taboo around children’s continence issues and encourages the use of school toilets.  And, most important of all, I hope it’s a fun read for kids!

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?  

THE DAY I POOED MYSELF ON PURPOSE

In my first post, Why I Pooed My Pants, I stated that I didn’t deliberately go in my pants.  For the most part this is quite true, but there was one occasion when I did poo myself on purpose, although, as you will see, I was not soiling a pair of clean pants.

                    

I was 8 when this happened and it took place at the home of my maternal grandmother, the only grandparent I ever knew.  She lived in a Victorian terraced house, which has since been converted.  There was no bathroom and only an outside toilet.  The fairly small back garden had no grass, few flowers and mostly consisted of paths leading to the toilet and the outside gate, and areas of soil and rock.  I was playing alone in this garden when I got the familiar feeling in my underwear that told me that my pants were messy.  I ignored it and carried on playing.  Even if I had wanted to go back inside the house where my mother and grandmother were talking I would not now do so, as this would result in my accident being quickly discovered.

I was able to play happily on my own
for hours - which was a good thing
when I was messy and smelly!

Fortunately, I could always entertain myself, and did not need toys or other children or adults to have a fun time playing.  I had a good imagination and don’t ever remember being bored during the whole of my childhood, I could always find something to do.  I loved the long summer holiday from school and did not need my parents to spend large amounts of time or money to keep me entertained.

While I was playing I felt the need to poo again.  I was only a few metres from the toilet, but did not think for one second of using it.  I was already in a crouching position when I felt it, but this time I didn’t withhold, as I still often did when I was away from home.  Instead I pushed and, for the first time in my life, I pooed in my pants on purpose.  It was a good thing there was no-one in the next garden looking over, or they would have seen a strange sight, an 8 year old boy crouching down and deliberately messing himself. For the first time ever I actually felt the poo leaving my bottom and entering my underwear.  I must have known that I was being very naughty doing this, but I did it anyway.  When I had finished I resumed playing in my freshly soiled pants.

It must have been a few days since I had used the toilet because shortly afterwards I felt that I had to go again.  I crouched down and added to the waste in my underwear.  In the same way that you may say that a baby has filled his nappy, some parents refer to a child who has soiled himself as having ‘filled his pants’.  It was not a phrase that was usually used in my house, but it would have been particularly apt on this day.  Indeed, I was treating my underwear like it was a nappy.  It was a good job that I did not also need a wee that afternoon or I probably would have just done that in my pants as well and created an even more horrendous mess.

Not surprisingly, when I was called into the house my mother was quickly alerted to what I had done.  She was used to discovering that her son had pooed himself, but even she was shocked by how badly I stank.  When she looked inside my pants and found out how much I'd pooed in them and how messy I was she was furious with me.

With no bathroom, no hot running water and no spare pants, changing me at my grandmother’s home would have been nearly impossible.  Instead I had to endure an humiliating half-hour bus ride home in my soiled pants, absolutely reeking of poo.  Looking back, I’m surprised the driver allowed such a stinky child on his bus.  We sat near the front, which meant that everyone who got on smelt me, and my mother reprimanded me throughout the journey.

Aged 8, I deliberately pooed my pants
for the first time in my life, behaving
as if I was wearing a nappy.

Cleaning me up that day was going to be no easy task and my mother decided that I would need a bath.  ‘How do you expect me to get these clean?’ she asked me, holding up my pants in front of me.  We were not a rich family and supermarkets did not sell cheap underwear in those days, so throwing out my pants everytime I soiled them was not an option.  Seeing my underwear caked in my poo really brought home to me just what I had done.  I sat in the tub feeling ashamed of myself.

I know I behaved badly that day, and I thoroughly deserved the scolding I received.  Why did I do it?  One mother on Mumsnet whose 9 year old son always withheld his poo at school said that if he came home in dirty underwear he would sometimes just do the rest in his pants.  He knew he would be moaned at for soiling himself anyway, so it was a case of ‘in for the penny, in for the pound.’  Maybe that was the way I was thinking that afternoon.  Or perhaps I disliked the thought of using the toilet when I already had a pooey bottom, and of pulling down my messy pants and pulling them back up again.  But I suspect that the real reason was that it just seemed the easy thing to do at the time.  Once again, I did not think of the consequences of my actions.

It has not been easy to write about this, as it is one of my most painful memories of my childhood, certainly the worst that was a result of my soiling habit.  The only good thing that came out of it was that I was never tempted to do it again.

STAYING IN MESSY PANTS

One of the things which the parents of children with encopresis find most difficult to understand is how their offspring seem quite happy to keep wearing soiled underwear after they have had an accident, and carry on activities as if nothing had happened.  Typical comments include, ‘He’d sit in his own waste for hours if I let him,’ and ‘How can she carry on playing when her knickers are full of poo?’  Like many other children with soiling problems, I never told anyone when I’d had an accident and would sit, walk around or play in messy pants until someone, usually my mother, smelled what I had done, checked my pants and changed me.

Having messy pants didn't stop me
from playing.  I was quite content
to sit in my own poo.

You may think that this is a perfectly disgusting thing to do, carrying on playing with a pooey bottom and dirty pants, but at the time it seemed perfectly natural.  Some children can neither smell nor feel when they have had an accident and therefore do not know that they need changing.  This was not the case with me as, although I couldn’t smell anything, I could feel my waste in my pants and knew that I had soiled myself.

When I was very young I liked to think that if I ignored my pooey pants then they would go away.  As I got older I learnt from experience that, sadly, this was not the case, but, for a number of reasons, I still kept quiet about my accidents until they were discovered by others.

One of the reasons for this was that I nearly always got told off when my mother discovered that I’d had another accident.  Sometimes she would also shout at me or threaten to put me back in nappies.  Like the threat to get my teacher to tell everyone in my class that I messed my pants (see How I Stopped Soiling My Pants), I don’t think she would have ever done this, but I didn’t know this at the time and worried about the prospect of being sent to school wearing a nappy.  I was in no hurry to be scolded and tried to put off the event for as long as possible by keeping quiet about the state of my underwear.

Even if she knows that
she is messy and smelly,

and that she needs changing,
a child may be too frightened
or embarrassed to tell
anyone that she has
pooed her pants. (c)

Another factor was the feelings of embarrassment and shame I felt about what I had done, feelings which got worse as I got older and was still incapable of keeping my pants clean all the time.  There was also the feeling of having let my parents down by soiling myself when I knew that I should have used the toilet. 

There was just no way I was going to go up to my mother and admit that I’d pooed myself yet again, and I certainly wasn’t going to tell an adult I barely knew, such as a friend’s parent on a playdate, that I’d had an accident in my pants and needed changing.  If, as a parent, you’ve felt embarrassed when your child has wet him or herself in a shop, then take that embarrassment and multiply it a few times to get how I felt.

Finally, staying in messy pants was a way of coping with what I increasingly thought of as my babyish habit.  By ignoring my accidents and carrying on with what I was doing, I could pretend that my pants were not dirty and I had not soiled myself again.  For that relatively short period I could be a normal child and enjoy playing or reading or whatever I was doing, and put to the back of my mind the fact that I was smelly and messy and had behaved more like a toddler than an older child.

Unless I was really stinky,
 I would play with other
 children when I knew that
my pants were dirty.

My actions varied if I soiled while playing with other children.  If it felt like a bad accident and I guessed that I was really stinky then I tried not to get too close to them.  On the other hand if it felt like I only had a relatively small amount of poo in my pants then I would carry on playing with them as normal.  Sometimes they would comment on the smell, but usually they didn’t.  If they did say anything they usually accused me of having ‘trumped’ (broken wind), rather than dirtying my pants.

As for physical considerations, I won’t say that I liked the feeling of messy pants, but over time I got used to it and did not find wearing them particularly uncomfortable.

Another activity which encopretic children commonly engage in, to the exasperation of their parents, is to hide their soiled underwear, often under the bed or at the back of a cupboard.  This is something I never did, but I can certainly understand why children do this.  If they are likely to be punished for soiling then by hiding their pants they may be seeking to avoid, or merely delay, their punishment.  

Even if their parents are very understanding about their soiling problems and would not punish them, the child is still likely to feel embarrassed about the situation like I did and feel unable to report their accidents.  Eventually they are given away by the stench produced by the stash of hidden underwear or the fact that the child is running out of clean pants.  But as Dimity Telfer says in her blog The Magic Within Us about why she hid her soiled underwear, 'When your choices are to be yelled at now or yelled at tomorrow, I chose the second option.  I hid them because I wanted to live for an hour (even half an hour) as if it never happened."