Just turned 8 and still has "accidents"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid did this too. No medical cause we could find. It stopped when she wanted it to stop, which was around 8.5.

I set a rule that if she had an accident, she had to shower immediately. Not as a punishment but as a consequence because no one wants to smell like pee. That annoyed her enough to incentivize stopping. Took about 6 months though. Also, I suspect she just matured socially enough to realize that if she did this at school - and she used to - she'd be very embarrassed. That is probably what finally did it, but I didn't ask and she didn't say.

Thats a great idea. I am going to try that. I am hoping it wont take 6 months because I hate having to wash her wet clothes. Thats what I am thinking. She doesnt want her friends to find out if she wet herself in front of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need more reminders you need fewer. And those reminders can’t be “do you need to go?” They need to be let’s take a break and go now. Who needs to pee every 30 minutes? You’re not teaching her to listen to her body but rather the clock. Then you say things like “I’m not playing with you until you go. Just sit on the toilet for 30 seconds with the water running.” If she says I don’t have to, but it’s been 2 hours since she last did “ok I’ll wait. Prove that you don’t have to”. If you make her go every 30 minutes she’ll hate the toilet. Also it’s not a potty anymore, it’s a bathroom.

I do need to be more strict when it comes to not asking her but telling. She always says she doesnt have to go. Then when she does at least try, she will pretend to go but I know she didnt. I am going to start setting a timer for 30 minutes and go from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need more reminders you need fewer. And those reminders can’t be “do you need to go?” They need to be let’s take a break and go now. Who needs to pee every 30 minutes? You’re not teaching her to listen to her body but rather the clock. Then you say things like “I’m not playing with you until you go. Just sit on the toilet for 30 seconds with the water running.” If she says I don’t have to, but it’s been 2 hours since she last did “ok I’ll wait. Prove that you don’t have to”. If you make her go every 30 minutes she’ll hate the toilet. Also it’s not a potty anymore, it’s a bathroom.

I do need to be more strict when it comes to not asking her but telling. She always says she doesnt have to go. Then when she does at least try, she will pretend to go but I know she didnt. I am going to start setting a timer for 30 minutes and go from there.

Don't make a big deal out of it when she shows restraint but ends up going. Like "I told you you had to go!" instead say "great job!" don't focus too much on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need more reminders you need fewer. And those reminders can’t be “do you need to go?” They need to be let’s take a break and go now. Who needs to pee every 30 minutes? You’re not teaching her to listen to her body but rather the clock. Then you say things like “I’m not playing with you until you go. Just sit on the toilet for 30 seconds with the water running.” If she says I don’t have to, but it’s been 2 hours since she last did “ok I’ll wait. Prove that you don’t have to”. If you make her go every 30 minutes she’ll hate the toilet. Also it’s not a potty anymore, it’s a bathroom.

I do need to be more strict when it comes to not asking her but telling. She always says she doesnt have to go. Then when she does at least try, she will pretend to go but I know she didnt. I am going to start setting a timer for 30 minutes and go from there.

Every 30 minutes is a nuisance. Who goes to the bathroom every 30 minutes? That's 8 times every 4 hours. How do you go from "Do you need to go?" to "let's go try." It will start to annoy her and doesn't teach her to listen to her body, but rather a clock. That's not a good idea, do it no more than once an hour.

[Anonymous]

Like doctor said, don't worry about overnight accidents at this age.

If this is the only ADHD-like symptom, she does NOT have ADHD. But like PPs have said, it's very common for adults and kids with ADHD to not want to break their focus and then forget or wait too long to eat or pee. Punishing will NOT help if that's the case. And "I don't have to go" or "I'm not hungry" usually means "I don't want to stop what I'm doing" or is a result of not paying attention to signals from their body because their attention is hyperfocused on something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need more reminders you need fewer. And those reminders can’t be “do you need to go?” They need to be let’s take a break and go now. Who needs to pee every 30 minutes? You’re not teaching her to listen to her body but rather the clock. Then you say things like “I’m not playing with you until you go. Just sit on the toilet for 30 seconds with the water running.” If she says I don’t have to, but it’s been 2 hours since she last did “ok I’ll wait. Prove that you don’t have to”. If you make her go every 30 minutes she’ll hate the toilet. Also it’s not a potty anymore, it’s a bathroom.

I do need to be more strict when it comes to not asking her but telling. She always says she doesnt have to go. Then when she does at least try, she will pretend to go but I know she didnt. I am going to start setting a timer for 30 minutes and go from there.

Every 30 minutes is a nuisance. Who goes to the bathroom every 30 minutes? That's 8 times every 4 hours. How do you go from "Do you need to go?" to "let's go try." It will start to annoy her and doesn't teach her to listen to her body, but rather a clock. That's not a good idea, do it no more than once an hour.

She doesnt actually go every 30 minutes. I just make her try to go. Like I said before, 95% of the time she says she doesnt have to go but I make her try anyways. What irritates me is that she will fight me when I ask her to at least try. She doesnt want to put forth the effort to want to help herself stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need more reminders you need fewer. And those reminders can’t be “do you need to go?” They need to be let’s take a break and go now. Who needs to pee every 30 minutes? You’re not teaching her to listen to her body but rather the clock. Then you say things like “I’m not playing with you until you go. Just sit on the toilet for 30 seconds with the water running.” If she says I don’t have to, but it’s been 2 hours since she last did “ok I’ll wait. Prove that you don’t have to”. If you make her go every 30 minutes she’ll hate the toilet. Also it’s not a potty anymore, it’s a bathroom.

I do need to be more strict when it comes to not asking her but telling. She always says she doesnt have to go. Then when she does at least try, she will pretend to go but I know she didnt. I am going to start setting a timer for 30 minutes and go from there.

Every 30 minutes is a nuisance. Who goes to the bathroom every 30 minutes? That's 8 times every 4 hours. How do you go from "Do you need to go?" to "let's go try." It will start to annoy her and doesn't teach her to listen to her body, but rather a clock. That's not a good idea, do it no more than once an hour.

She doesnt actually go every 30 minutes. I just make her try to go. Like I said before, 95% of the time she says she doesnt have to go but I make her try anyways. What irritates me is that she will fight me when I ask her to at least try. She doesnt want to put forth the effort to want to help herself stop.

This comment is convincing me that it's more likely to be something like ADHD. Calling a neurodivergent person lazy or calling them out for not putting forth effort can be really damaging to their self-esteem, and also being forced to do something is more likely to make them fight it.

[Anonymous]

How difficult was potty training? Do you think it would help to go back to the beginning and try again?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You don’t need more reminders you need fewer. And those reminders can’t be “do you need to go?” They need to be let’s take a break and go now. Who needs to pee every 30 minutes? You’re not teaching her to listen to her body but rather the clock. Then you say things like “I’m not playing with you until you go. Just sit on the toilet for 30 seconds with the water running.” If she says I don’t have to, but it’s been 2 hours since she last did “ok I’ll wait. Prove that you don’t have to”. If you make her go every 30 minutes she’ll hate the toilet. Also it’s not a potty anymore, it’s a bathroom.

I do need to be more strict when it comes to not asking her but telling. She always says she doesnt have to go. Then when she does at least try, she will pretend to go but I know she didnt. I am going to start setting a timer for 30 minutes and go from there.

Every 30 minutes is a nuisance. Who goes to the bathroom every 30 minutes? That's 8 times every 4 hours. How do you go from "Do you need to go?" to "let's go try." It will start to annoy her and doesn't teach her to listen to her body, but rather a clock. That's not a good idea, do it no more than once an hour.

She doesnt actually go every 30 minutes. I just make her try to go. Like I said before, 95% of the time she says she doesnt have to go but I make her try anyways. What irritates me is that she will fight me when I ask her to at least try. She doesnt want to put forth the effort to want to help herself stop.

Not sure why this annoying behavior points to ADHD, ignore those comments. Set yourself a timer for every 30 minutes and remind yourself to go to the bathroom. "just try Denise!" Youre being so annoying, a helicopter parent. Give her some space. Stop reminding her every 30 minutes, it's way too much. Of course she's fighting with you. Do every 60-90-120 minutes, a normal routine, and see if that works. If she fights it, you say "I can't play/cook/hang out until you go try for 30 seconds." Turn on the faucet, count to 30 with her, don't say "I told you so" and carry on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How difficult was potty training? Do you think it would help to go back to the beginning and try again?

Potty training wasnt really difficult. Granted, she was a little stubborn and was just over 3 when it finally clicked. It wasnt until she was around 6.5 when she started waiting till the last possible second to go. I should of done more at that point but because she wasnt having full accidents, I didnt consider it a huge issue. But now that she is 8 and still doing it and the damp spots on her pants are becoming more visible as she gets older when she does dribble.

[Anonymous]

Tell her if she isn’t going to the bathroom when she needs to she will need to have diapers. She won’t like that idea and she will decide it is better to just use the bathroom when she needs to.

[Anonymous]

t get checked for a UTI. If the doctor says everything is medically cleared I would just put pull-ups on her all the time when you go out. We had the same issue. Our doctor explained that kids with ADHD when they go out into the world are extremely distracted by everything. Everything is brighter. Everything is this that so for them they can’t recognize sometimes when they can go to the bathroom or they’re just being lazy and because they’re having so much fun. They’re like I’m just gonna do it right here not realizing what they’re doing until it’s too late. We continue to put the pull-ups on her and as she got a little bit older, she started to get the hang of having to go to the bathroom in public. We just did not make it a big deal so she wouldn’t get upset and it ended up stoping in a few months.
Also, I’m not sure if it’s all bathrooms but most public bathrooms when you go to flush the toilet it’s extremely loud. Our daughter was also at times avoiding the public bathrooms because of the noise. So we taught her how to quickly flush it watch it go down and hold her ears. This made it so then she wasn’t so upset going in the bathroom because she knew to cover her ears a certain way to help
By the way, I know this is hard right now, but you got this mama bear

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell her if she isn’t going to the bathroom when she needs to she will need to have diapers. She won’t like that idea and she will decide it is better to just use the bathroom when she needs to.

Yeah, threaten a kid who is struggling with a punishment like wearing diapers! That'll teach her!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tell her if she isn’t going to the bathroom when she needs to she will need to have diapers. She won’t like that idea and she will decide it is better to just use the bathroom when she needs to.

I am not sure if its at the point to mention diapers as she is not having full on accidents but I do see your point. Although just telling her that might give her a kick in the but to pay more attention.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tell her if she isn’t going to the bathroom when she needs to she will need to have diapers. She won’t like that idea and she will decide it is better to just use the bathroom when she needs to.

Yeah, threaten a kid who is struggling with a punishment like wearing diapers! That'll teach her!

Not a punishment. If they have lots of accidents it easier to manage.