Anonymous wrote:PP who gave a link to the Encyclopedia Britannica to tell me I am parenting wrong - really? The Encyclopedia Britannica? And the partisan who wrote the article is critiquing Kohn's educational writing, not his parenting approach. I said we use Kohn's approach to show that though I have a child with constipation, we are not controlling parents.

Let's keep the unsolicited attacks on other people's parenting philosophies to general parenting, shall we?

Good grief, PP. Suggesting you “re-think” your parenting approach when it comes to encopresis isn’t an attack.

The article I lined to gave an excellent description of the faulty reasoning when it comes to Kohn’s approach, e.g: In his book, Punished by Rewards, Kohn claims “Praise, at least as commonly practiced, is a way of using and perpetuating children’s dependence on us. It gets them to conform to our wishes irrespective of what those wishes are.” (p. 104.) Kohn also argues that praise and rewards for good behavior are destructive to motivation.

The article is also linked to a researcher at Stanford who got her qualifications at Yale since you poo-pooed (as it were) the original article: https://web.stanford.edu/dept/psychology/cgi-bin/drupalm/cdweck

Encopresis at the older ages without a medical cause is behavioral. You need to use an evidence-based positive reinforcement approach like the Kazdin Method to see sustained behavior change. He’s at Yale if you’re interested.

FYI, an Attack would be saying you sound like an unhinged loon. That's an attack.

OP, is there any point to posting advice? Or are you just going to respond to attacks?

<<Let's keep the unsolicited attacks on other people's parenting philosophies to general parenting, shall we? >>

+1

PP who gave a link to the Encyclopedia Britannica to tell me I am parenting wrong - really? The Encyclopedia Britannica? And the partisan who wrote the article is critiquing Kohn's educational writing, not his parenting approach. I said we use Kohn's approach to show that though I have a child with constipation, we are not controlling parents.

Let's keep the unsolicited attacks on other people's parenting philosophies to general parenting, shall we?

OP, Freudians use the word "overdetermined" about symptoms and behavior, which means that symptoms have multiple reasons and causes and it's impossible to say that x caused y symptom. Symptoms tend to be overdetermined rather than come in neat packages. Maybe in the beginning her tush was sore and she withheld poo because of that; then there were some issues about control or she liked the feeling or whatever; in her mind she was embarrassed too. So layers of reasons and she doesn't know or understand at this point why she does it.

I do think she's at an age where she should be taking the lead oar with her own hygiene and bowel movement protocol. Any way to empower her more on that front?

Try drasticallly increasing her water intake. Make sure she finishes her water at home. Send her to school every day with a water bottle.