My ASD son (15) marking his territory. 💩

[LizzieBowesLyon]

I promise this is not one of those weirdo threads. I’ve been around for yonks and have changed my name to protect him. He’s at mainstream school, holding steady on GCSE but is very square and socially awkward. We have had problems with stool withholding/encopresis for ages and he doesn’t seem willing to regulate his bowels properly and also seems to be almost nose-blind!

After something of a breakthrough on comms today, he has admitted that he hides pants with poo in “to mark his territory.” He did it on holiday - on the last day one of the other kids noticed a quite deliberate stripe of poo high up on the bathroom wall. DS admitted this was him too.

He has also been known to scrawl/mark the walls a little but that’s reduced to almost nothing. This however drives me insane.

ANY helpful pointers would be good.

If you say “try a reward chart” I will hunt you down.

Just sayin.

You mean he does a poo in his pants, takes them off, hides them somewhere meaningful to him? Has he always done that?

Make him clean it up after himself.

ASS or not. Just no.

What’s his diagnosis? Have you had any professional involvement who you could ask for advice?

I would if you can source a therapist with experience of ASD. This sounds like quite a complex issue and it may take a proffesional to unpick what is going on behind this. Poo smearing can happen for all sorts of reasons but this would concern me. I’m not sure usual parenting tips and tricks apply here.

I would also get this thread moved to the SEN boards

Diagnosis is ASD and ADHD with sensory profile.

He was under psych for stool withholding. EHCP and lots of reasonable adjustments etc

Hiya, zOP@LizzieBowesLyon yes the SEN board might be better? I’ve worked with people who do this as a result of their mental health challenges and also in dementia, it can have a sensory seeking aspect but also can be attention seeking behaviour. As your son seems to have some insight or a “reason” then he may need to work with someone therapeutically, what input have you had til now from the health services, or support groups? How is he coping with school stress?

Sadly this is more common than you think and a friend’s child did this when they were of primary school age. The friend couldn’t have anyone over unless they’d checked the toilet walls were clean. I think the child grew out of it, but I’m really sorry that I can’t give you any advice op.

It’s evolved into it after really serious stool withholding to the degree he had to be admitted to hospital and given enemas etc.

Paediatrician prescribed heavy duty laxatives to purge any compacted bits, and I think that’s frightened him a bit into actually using the toilet but he still withholds and now we have the pants hiding. I’m not sure that the location is meaningful - just where he knows they will be found, rather than in the bin outside. And calculated for max stink and annoyance.

locations include down the side of my wardrobe, in his brother’s cupboard, down the side of the washing machine and on the windowsill of an upstairs room.

The phrase 'marking his territory' and then the placement in yours and your other children's bedrooms I find quite unpleasant - they aren't his territory. Why does he want to claim them as his? Also he knows you'll find them. If he's mainstream and (pardon if I'm using incorrectly) high functioning, could he not have a stern word explaining why it is unpleasant and unhygienic and put consequences in place?

Sorry but don’t you think I haven’t tried? I’ve screamed and railed and begged and love bombed and Ed psych’d to very little avail. It’s DEEPLY unpleasant. And yet he still does it so there must be some sort of payoff for this behaviour which is more satisfying than my putting any amount of consequences in.

@LizzieBowesLyon your update does sound as if he’s on the attention seeking end of things. I had a pants hider due to long term chronic issues but they were hidden where I wouldn’t come across them.

Have you asked him why he’s ‘marking his territory’ and why he puts them in places where they can be found? I could understand hiding pooey pants through shame, but to put them in places where they’ll be found is very different. It suggests he knows it’s gross and is doing it to shock or for attention.

How would he feel if one of his siblings did the same to him?

I think I’d be taking away privileges after a good talk about why it’s not acceptable, but I’d want to have a calm discussion with him first to get some idea of the motivation. On the face of it, it looks like an unpleasant ‘joke’ but I’d want to hear more from him first.

Did you ever find out why the pants hider did it? Did they ever express regret? For my son, soiling is no worse than say, a nose bleed.

This latest episode has just happened and I have told him to move them and left it at that, to reduce the attention pay off.

Sorry I’ve quoted the wrong poster there!

A payoff or a compulsion - or obsession with poo? Is something happening that ‘provides’ him with the pooey pants which he then hides? If so, could you stop the cause? Or is he ‘making’ them specifically to hide?

Yes I think shock and attention. He loves attention and sometimes it’s really cringing stuff like wanting to go into town wearing a clown mask, or wanting to wear some fancy dress randomly to school. Stuff you’d expect from a primary aged child. Pulling daft faces on really important photos for example.
He doesn’t join things up somehow.

I think he likes the sensation of a full bowel and that’s what caused the initial stool withholding. I’d find him when he was very small, sort of rocking and pacing to keep it in and then being really sad when we sat him on the toilet and he had to say goodbye. That’s all quite cute when you’re a toddler but he’s 6”2’ and 15.

Is there really much difference between a compulsion and a behaviour with a payoff?

Would he be mature enough to engage (and could you afford) psychoanalytic type therapy?

@LizzieBowesLyon mine was the pants hider,shes not ASD but has some sensory issues ,appears to be quite disconnected from her bodily sensations and found them easy to ignore but has shame about it and expressed regret so it took a while to work up to putting the dirty pants in a special box.its so hard not to react negatively when a teen is presenting you with poopy pants! I'm aware that an ASD person might not perceive things in the same way as a NT person but I think generally with incontinence it's a good idea to take away the negative emotions and just reinforce the behaviour patterns you want him to show like putting them somewhere appropriate. I have worked with adult poo hiders where the behaviour is pretty entrenched hence why if there's someone professional to seek advice from I would try that. P.S. I also despise reward charts!!

That’s an idea. We have private cover so we might be able to access that. I think finding the right person is key.

Thank you for your supportive post! The adults you dealt with - even though it was entrenched, did anyone work out why they were doing it?

Intersstingly I came across a lady whose husband is ASD and had hidden bottles of wee in his office! The closest she got to working out what that was about was he said that he loved his office (he slept in there too) and that he didn’t want to leave there and thought “I’ll just wee in this bottle and move it later” and then was too embarrassed so he hid them. He had a really senior job at a company you’d have heard of. They’re divorced now so I don’t know if they ever resolved it but I’m guessing not…

Assuming he has an allowance, I would dock his allowance for each incident (£20) and also start charging replacement pants to him at cost. This is one of the most revolting posts I’ve ever read on MN, and I lived through penis beaker.