'HELP! I POO MY PANTS'

If you’ve read my earlier post, you will know that in 2014 I decided to write a book for older children who soil, as the only books on the market for kids who had poo accidents were picture books for very young children.  In 2016, following requests from some parents, I reissued these books in gender specific editions called A Boy Like You and A Girl Like You.  They were very successful and have helped many children with encopresis to understand that they are not alone with their problems and that they can, with help, overcome them.  Many parents have also found these books useful in understanding encopresis from a child’s point of view, and helping to start a conversation with their child about their soiling problems.  These books are still available and are recommended for children aged 8 to 12 years.  You can find out more about them by clicking here to read the relevant post.

A new book designed to encourage
younger children to use the toilet
instead of withholding their poo.

In 2020 I decided that there was still a gap that needed to be bridged between the picture books that were available and my books for older children.  I decided therefore to write a new book for younger children who soiled their pants.  This book would have shorter chapters and a simpler storyline than my existing book.  Once again there would be separate editions for boys and girls, as I am now convinced that for an issue as personal as toilet problems, most kids would rather read a book in which the child who shared their problem was also the same sex as themselves.  The title of this book would be Help! I Poo My Pants, it would be designed for children aged 5 to 8 years and the lead character would be 7 years old.

This set of books places a greater emphasis on discouraging the reader from withholding their poo, a major cause of soiling, and encouraging them to go to the toilet instead, including when they are at school or away from home.  The lead character – I shall use Amelia from the Girl version of the book for convenience – frequently withholds her poo when she doesn’t want to stop playing, and feels totally unable to poo in the school toilets, or the toilets at other people’s homes as well as public toilets. 

This, of course, means that Amelia often poos her pants, which she finds very embarrassing and upsetting, especially when it happens at school or in public.  She also wets herself occasionally, when the poo she has withheld in her body presses on her bladder.  She is unable to change herself when she is messy and is reliant on an adult to do it for her.  She finds it particularly humiliating when she has to be cleaned up in public toilets or baby changing rooms, or when she has to wait in the school corridor for her mother to come to change her pull-up, which her teacher insists that she wears at school.

Can Toby, the hero of the Boy
version of the book, find the courage
to go to the toilet every time he
needs to poo, even at school? 

Although the situations are largely invented, the emotional experiences of Amelia mostly mirror my own feelings of being this age, when I was frequently soiling myself and felt very unhappy about my toilet problems.  Like me, Amelia has to learn that she must always go to the toilet when she needs to poo, including when she is on a day out or at school.  She also starts to tell someone when she does have an accident and needs changing, something which I never did myself.

I also designed a series of ‘posters’ to go between some of the chapters to reinforce the message of the book and encourage good bladder and bowel health and bathroom hygiene.  These are similar to those used in the book I wrote the previous year, News from the Loos.

The American Edition of this book is titled Help! I Poop My Pants.  The story is identical to the British version, but the vocabulary, spelling and phrasing of the American Edition has been adapted to make it familiar to North American readers.  Both the British and American editions are available in paperback and for the Kindle and Kindle apps.  Initial sales of the books have been encouraging, and I really hope that these new books help younger children who have soiling problems, as well as their parents and carers.

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.