My son is stopping himself to pooh!

[abbyrice1976]

My oldest son is 6 in May and getting him to have a pooh is daily battle. He never goes voluntarily and He can hold it for a week if we have not noticed he hasn't been. The only time we can get him to go is if we catch him going red in the face holding it in, once that moment has passed he will sit on the toilet for hours and nothing will happen.
I tried to explain this to the doctor (we live in France, so not sure I got the point across), The doctor said it was childhood constipation and prescribed a laxative.

However he still holds it and his pants are just a little more soiled than usual.

This has been going on ever since he came out of nappies and the doctors have always said he is young and will grow out of it!

We have tried praising with presents for going,
we have tried ignoring it (with the thesis that it is an attention seeking thing)
None of these have made a difference.

is this phsycological or physical/medical?

Well there's such a thing as toilet phobia which is a phsycological issue but I don't know how it gets diagnosed.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

It starts as a psychological issue but cause physical problems. And sometimes the psychological issue is caused by a physical event like constipation or slipping on the toilet.

If he's leaking faeces after witholding, this is something called encopresis which you can google for more information. He needs some help from somebody who understands this.

Usually laxatives are prescribed but you also need to work with him.

I agree with ShowOfHands. My son had this problem, he was taking laxatives for years. Some laxatives are better than others. Senna just causes tummy ache and should be avoided. Movicol was marvellous, it breaks up the hard stool that is causing the poor child all the discomfort, and makes it pain free for him to go. It's a brand name, I am not sure what the generic laxative is called. My son was on a v large dose to start with, to break up the stool and help his distorted colon to return to a more normal shape / regain muscle tone, and then a maintenance dose for a few months (yes months), together with much positive and patient psychology / praise / rewards when he poohed. Also we told him that the poo needed to go to poo poo land, and when he flushed the toilet encouraged him to say bye bye poo, happy holidays! (seriously!). If necessary you can take him to a sewage farm to see where poo poo land is (seriously! this helped too!).

Yes I am mad but it worked

good luck :)