Would a toddler wet himself on purpose to be naughty ?

[Sweaty84]

DS1 is 3 (only just).

He is a handful. Regular meltdowns and puts up a fight over most things. His speech therapist said he is neurodivergent apparently.

We have managed to potty train him, just about. He now does wees in the potty or loo. (Seems terrified of doing a poo in the potty however).

DH has both DS on Fridays and it's always bloody awful. Much worse than all the other days. He always takes the meltdowns personally and it always escalates. DH is never aggressive but he does get v frustrated. I tell him to calm down.

Anyway today our DS has wet himself 6 times. Every time during a tantrum or when he's being told off. All this week he hasn't had one accident until today.

DH says DS is wetting himself as a protest. Like he's being naughty. He is doing it in defiance. This sounds crazy to me. I think he is doing it because today has been horrible where DS is stressed and he needs cuddles and reassurance even if he has just been naughty

I just don't think a 3 Yr old has the thought process to do something like that to get attention or wind us up.

What do others think?

For as long as you and your dad are divided on this your child, autistic or not, will continue with his deliberate behaviour.

I think your Dh needs to stay away from your Ds until he can calm down and not take things so personally.

Complete over reaction on his part and given it was you who Ds pushed then it should be you giving out any punishment if needed which a gentle telling off to not push as it isn’t a nice thing to do would get better behaviour than your bully of a husband.

If every time your Dh looks after Ds it is horrific and if ds wet himself 6 times in one day when he was being looked after by his father when he had been dry all week then the problem is not your Ds it is your Dh.

Why is ds’s behaviour so bad with his father.

If this example is how you describe dh’s behaviour towards your Ds when you are present then I would worry what he is doing when you aren’t there.

I wouldn’t feel Ds was safe in his fathers care and would be looking for alternative childcare.

Why is your Dh trying to control a ND 3 year old. That in itself is not going to end well.

Is he trying to bully him to be normal

He's not naughty, he's 3.

3 years can be naughty. Anyone who says otherwise is not a parent or has professional experience of kids.

I suppose then the question is why this child feels the need to wet himself 6 times in one day when in his fathers care and us perfectly fine with his mother and why every time he gets looked after by his father op describes it as horrific.

It's really not. Okay the shouting is not great, but he's not ranting and raving at ds. For all we know the op could be dramatising and the dh said "do not push your mother" in a stern voice which is fine. Putting ds in a different room for a minute to calm down and think about what he's done is really not horrific. Imo the ds probably did wet himself because he was pissed off at being sent to another room.

It doesn't really matter if he is or is not. Simply calmly change, with neutral emotions, ignoring any indication it might be an attempt to be naughty. That way the behaviour is not encouraged if it is being done for attention.

Smearing is often, although not always, a sign of sexual abuse.

Hopefully when your child gets a diagnosis you might be offered help with parenting eg Earlybird course. Sounds like your DH really needs it.

Not in neurodiverse children @bellac11

Is he awaiting assessments?

His speech therapist thinks your DS might be autistic or have ADHD or both. He is 3.

Your DH is shouting at him, isolating him when he is already showing signs of overwhelm (and needs a trusted adult to help him to regulate himself) and can’t understand why he wets himself on days when he is the main caregiver.

I think that is horrific.

Its quite dangerous to make that assumption, that if its a ND child then we can ignore the signs. Its not a blanket reason either way.

Kids of 6 years old can still wet themselves in distress.

Is that twaddle too?

Just wondering so I can pass this information onto a friend whose neurotypical son still wets himself over the bellowing voice of his angry father.

I suggest it is you that is talking twaddle.

OP, your child is in distress.

@alphapie unless you are an expert and can post links to your peer reviewed research on toddler wetting themselves in order to 'manipulate', piss off.

My son is 3.5 and he sometimes revenge weed if he's on the naughty step.

Did your child grow out of it eventually?

👃

At about 2 years old, my bro used to hold his breath on purpose during a tantrum and go blue in the face. My parents soon got wise to him!

So just now he was playing before bedtime and was happy. And then he just peed on the floor. DH is so unhappy. Saying all our progress in the last few weeks has gone in a day. He wasn't upset just then but from the accidents this morning it'd now like he's refusing to go near the potty at all.

I feel totally baffled.

Assuming your DH is right and he’s doing it to be manipulative, what is DH proposing you start doing to correct the initial behaviour ie the pushing back when you said no to a snack? I think your DH is absolutely batshit with very little idea about child development, but what is his plan? Is he expecting a 3 yr old to ask for a snack, be told no then go “Ok mum”?

When you go to him to comfort him when he’s stopped having a meltdown is provided him with comfort then modelled the good behaviour you want. If the snack incident happened as you said…DS asked for snack, you said no, DS said “please/I want a snack”, DH swooped in shouted at DS, picked him up and shut him in a room on his own then he’s modelling fantastically bad behaviour. He’s showing DS that when you don’t get what you want you lose your temper and use force to get what you want. DS needs to be taught what emotions he’s having and how to express them. You’ll know how DS reacts once you go to him. Is he relaxed, giggling and smiling or is he upset/scared/upset? That will tell you how DS is being affected. Sounds like DH has got a highly confrontational parenting style that basically escalates situations. Between a 3 yr old and an adult, it doesn’t take much for both of them to start screaming and shouting. However, it’s the adult’s job to not allow things to get to hand and diffuse the situation.

It’s not true that all the progress has gone 🤗 Very common to have off days with toilet training at the start. Tomorrow is another day and you’ll all have had a reset.

Your DH sounds a man of extremes, to put it politely.

We had a lot of false starts toilet draining our autistic DS. In the end he self trained at 6 in about a week and has been dry day and night ever since.

Potty training isn’t a steady linear progression? Children frequently seem to have got it for weeks and then regress by any number of steps. It’s something that takes months and months to accomplish.

It sounds like you are too soft and your husband too hard.
Are you minimising your son’s behaviour? How were you going to discipline him for pushing you?
You both urgently need to learn some parenting techniques and to be on the same page.
Yes of course children can do this deliberately at that age, the people who don’t realise this on time end up with little brats because they don’t teach their children to behave. It’s not suddenly at 6 years old that you need to teach them to behave, it’s much earlier.

Do you think the training started too early, OP? Very hard to go back to nappies at this stage, I know. But perhaps he’s just not ready? Is he dry at night?

From your posts, I wasn’t sure if you and DH are still together. Either way, I’d be worried that his frustration is making this worse. Shouting at a 3yo isn’t nice. And this is more of a concern if you’re separated.

It could be that Friday is so totally different to his normal routine it’s too much for him
I have a five year old who has melt downs and if possible I try to avoid triggering one without giving in. So a snack before dinner would be cucumber as it’s gets another portion of fruit and veg in but won’t fill him up.
mine doesn’t wet himself on purpose but he will only wear in the garden and it’s killing the grass

At 3 your son is not doing anything to be "naughty". He is learning boundaries and how far those boundaries can be pushed for him to gain what he wants in life. They are inherently selfish as they need to be and are looking to see what it takes to get what they want. Your jobs as parents are to help guide him to the right path whether neurotypical or diverse. Next time he acts out, take him away from the situation saying no, not screaming. Then allow for meltdown in a safe space with or without cuddles. Of course I don't always manage to be this calm myself! But it is clear that what is happening now isn't working in their relationships, so your husband as the adult needs to be the one to change his behaviour to get results. As Einstein almost certainly didn't actually say "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."

Yes I think they can wet.themselves to be naught even at that age. But more likely DC ia scared of DH!