(Sorry if TMI!)
I'm writing on behalf of my sister who's having some problems with her son. He was in pants when he was around 3 and all was fine until he started school when he was 4.4, he started to poo a bit in his pants, never a full poo but enough that you could smell it. He did it a few times in reception, but we were never sure why. He is a happy confident little boy, not worried at all about school.
2 years on he is still doing it (though not often at school), and my sister doesn't know how to handle it. Telling him off and being cross isn't helping, though she is worried she shouldn't be telling him off in case it makes things worse. She doesn't think there's anything medically wrong with him, but doesn't know when he is pumping if he is relaxing a bit too much and pooing a bit, or whether he is just leaving it too late, not going he needs to.
She has tried talking to him but he just says he doesn't know why he's done it or has an excuse (for instance he did it at a friends house on Friday, it was the first time he'd been to their house and said it was because he didn't know where the toilet was. My sister was there so he could have asked her if he was too shy to ask the mum - though he isn't a shy child).
What would you do, any advice would be much appreciated
x