My SIX year old has smeared poo on the walls at school, help!

[didntseethiscoming]

Have namechanged in case dd wants to be a politician or marry someone in the royal family when she grows up.

DH got pulled aside by the teacher this morning when he was dropping dd off and told that over the last fortnight she has smeared poo on the toilet walls 4 times.
She wouldn't explain to him why she has done it and is refusing to apologise to the caretaker.

She has never done anything like this before and never done it at home. The only thing similar was that a few months ago she pooed her pants on the coach on a school trip and abandoned the pooey pants in the school toilet, which I discovered when she came home with no pants on; we talked to her about why this was not acceptable and made her apologise to the school cleaner who found them.

She has been a bit funny the last few weeks - she's been absolutely vile to her younger brother and won't stay in bed at night. This may be connected to something that is going on at school: her best friend was recently bullied for having a mum who uses a wheelchair, and dd says the boy doing the bullying is nasty to her as well now.

I need advice....

Firstly what's the best way to approach this with her? DH's reaction was to be very cross with her; I want to find out WHY she's done it.
Also if I talk to the school about it being possibly connected to the bullying is it going to look like I'm making excuses? DH said the teacher said to him that they didn't care what she did at home but she wasn't allowed to do it at school - he was that they could think we allowed it at home, I mean, wtf?!

Has anyone experienced anything like this? She's just turned 6, y1, no special needs or behavioural issues.

I have no experience of this, but I do think that you're probably on to something with the bullying - something is causing a change in her behaviour, and just telling her off will probably compound the problem :(

On the plus side the change of routine with the school holidays coming up will probably sort the problem - she's unlikely to start doing it again after a break of some weeks.

As to why - something is unsettling her, clearly. Does she have any poo issues? is she OK re bum-wiping etc?

All I can come up with is giving her some graphic level of information re the amount of bugs and germs in poo. Find something on the web that spells out quite how yuck it is - you need to find a way to make her realise why it's unacceptable, and to understand why it's poo, wipe, wash and never anything else along the way.

IIWY I would definitely talk to the school. Make an appointment to speak to the headteacher, during school hours so dd will not be present. This is really worrying behaviour and the fact that dd is doing it at school and not at home is significant. The approach to take with the school is that you are concerned about what's been happening and you want to work with the school to help dd. Mention the bullying, not as an excuse for the behaviour, but as one of the issues to be addressed.

I think you could probably tackle both issues separately, but not go over the top re the poo incident. She is very little and in my experience- I have four children- sometimes you never get tothe bottom of things and sometimes even well behaved children do funny or worrying things. The poo smearing may be connected to the bullying or may not. I would have a quiet chat with her- but firm- and just point out why the poo stuff is unacceptable- nasty for someone else to clear up, unhygienic, smelly etc, then I would speak to the teacher re the bullying. You don't have to mention the poo stuff except to say you've spoken to her about it and it is out of character and you have made it clear it is unacceptable.Hopefully if they are connected it won't recur! And also I wouldn't worry if they think it's excuses- you don't have to make the possible connection, let them do so.

thanks everyone.

good idea about graphic information Hassled. She knows about germs in theory but I suspect she hasn't really taken it on board.

she doesn't have any poo issues that I know of; she used to hate wiping her bottom but she's been okay for well over a year now.

this is all really helpful, thank you.

Does she have any bowel problems, diarrhoea or constipation at any time? Just thinking that either of these might mean she somehow got poo on her hands and then wiped her hands on the wall.

But if she has been acting out of character for the last few weeks then I would say something is definitely upsetting her, and the bullying sounds like a good place to start.

Oh meant to ask - how does the school know that your DD is the 'culprit'

How worrying. Did she admit to it?

My DS went through a similar 'phase' at the same age. It all began with a poo incident where he didnt make it to the loo on time. Unfortunatley I was very cross and didnt realise how much the whole thing had upset him. Then the whole poo thing turned into a bit of an issue!

I suspect your DDs problem started after the coach trip incident. It must have been very traumatising to have that happen and she probably didnt know what to do and tried to sort it out herself. I would think it was a genuine accident as she is still young and being on a coach having too much fun with no time for the loo. Also if teachers and other pupils knew about it this would be so embarassing - can you imagine! Try to talk to her about why, maybe get her to talk about the first incident and explain that sometimes these things happen and it was an accident but to remember to go to the loo when out in future. Hopefully talking about this will make her feel less anxious and poo will be less of an issue. I really did underestimate how traumatic it was for my DS to have pooed himself first time around and could have kicked my self that it took me so long to put the whole thing together.

Also just check that she is not having any tummy troubles - maybe loose stools (sorry to be graphic) that she is having problems with wiping? It will probably become easier to spot this over the holidays when she is at home more.