My son keeps wetting himself at school

[Toomanytrousers]

My son has been dry in both the day and the night since he was 3. He is now 5.5 and in year one and this past week at school he has wet himself 4 times. Apart from one accident in reception, these are the only accidents he's ever had at school or preschool. He has not had any accidents at home in the day or nighttime. He does have a slight cold/cough at the moment but no temperature. As far as I have been able to work out, it doesn't hurt when he wees and his willy doesn't hurt. He has made various claims as to why it has happened- they were being quiet/he couldn't get the teachers attention/ was changing for PE and didn't have his shoes on- which all sound perfectly reasonable if any one of them had been an isolated case, but not all in one week. Due to clubs/ teacher having a trading afternoon and my work I haven't actually had a chance to speak to the teacher about it yet and the school have not tried to contact me about it either. My son isn't in the least bit embarrassed about it- it doesn't seem to be a big deal to him (in the rest of his life, he gets upset by things that are upsetting - he has normal emotions).

So- help! Do you think it's medical or behavioural or psychological? What can I do to find out and what can I do about it as this can't go on!

[Quoteunquote]

www.eric.org.uk/Campaigns/Bog%20Standard

Have you had a look in the toilets at pick up time?

I bet they are beyond grim, most primary schools have yet to work out they could cut nearly all the speed infections that cause illness if they bothered to provide acceptable loos and cleaned them during the day .

There are never enough, the teachers expect them all to go at the same time, they are expected to ask (so fucking stupid and self defeating if they ever expect them to learn responsibility.

One of mine would try and hold all day rather than face the discussing loos.

There is a really good reason the above site was set up, get your school on board.

www.eric.org.uk/Campaigns/TheRightToGo

[llhj]

Children need to ask permission to use the loo for a simple reason...so the teacher knows where they are! What would happen in a fire?

[Quoteunquote]

That would be informing the teacher where they are going, quite different from asking permission, permission means they have to wait until they are told yes.

[SweepTheHalls]

DS was just the same from September to Christmas. A sticker chart with BIG rewards sorted it eventually.

[Toomanytrousers]

The toilets at school are disgusting. And the children do have to ask to go. However, he's been at the school for a year and a half now so I don't think that he could suddenly have developed an issue with the dirty toilets or with having to ask having been fine before. As far as I am aware, nothing has changed.

I forgot to say that the accidents at school are fully on total bladder emptying not just a little bit. His pants, trousers, shoes and socks end up soaked.

[Toomanytrousers]

I have been thinking:

Do 5 year old boys generally get UTIs?
If it was a UTI, wouldn't this definitely have other symptoms (fever and pain) as he has no symptoms?
If it was a UTI, wouldn't it also be causing problems at night time (no bed wetting), every day (no issues today- Saturday)?

So I am thinking its probably behavioural (he is holding it too long and having accidents because he either can't be bothered to go or doesn't want to because something is putting him off using the toilets (he denies this is the case)) or psychological (something stressing him out- although wouldn't this affect him places other than school?)

So I am thinking it is laziness and I am going to do a reward chart and speak to the school about gently reminding him to go. I obviously don't want to do this if he has a physical problem, but it doesn't seem like he possibly could?