Why is she doing this?

[Spagblog]

My almost 6yr old DD has started misbehaving herself.
Recently she has repeatedly drawn all over herself, urinated on the carpet under her cabin bed and drawn on bedsheets.
We have taken away her colouring pens and play make up and anything else she could make a mark with.

Today after a nice morning she went upstairs and wee'd on the carpet in front of her 3yr old brother.
It turns out that she urinated there last night too, because she didn't want to come downstairs to use the loo.

DH is furious and wants to remove every last toy and game from her bedroom in punishment.
He has gone out and expects me to do this.

I am making her clean and tidy her room.

I don't understand it and I don't know how to suitably punish her.

I would say that rather than a massive punishment, you try to find out why she's feeling the need to draw attention to herslef so much. For a 6 year old gfirl to be deliberately urinating on her own bedroom floor, something has upset her somehow.

My first instinct on reading your post Spagblog is that there must be a reason, mustn't there, for this sudden change in behaviour. Perhaps you need to try and get to the bottom of why she is doing it rather than concentrate your energy on punishing her.

I know that's easy for me to say because I'm not sitting in your house knowing that there is now urine over the bedroom carpet but if you are confident that this is not just a continuation and growth of bad behaviour but instead a sudden change of good behaviour to bad behaviour then presumably there must be a reason for it.

oops, Colditz posted more succinctly while I was typing my longwinded version

I have no idea. She is happy at school, nothing much has changed at home.
She doesn't know why she did it.

The scary thing is that when I was older, I did it too.
I urinated on a rug in my bedroom for no reason. The bathroom was next door!
My mum took me to see the school nurse as I played ignorant to it, and she thought I was sleep walking/weeing.

God, is it a genetic perversion .

My parents never punished me for it. She has to see that it is wrong, but I have trouble knowing how to deal with it.

OMG my revelation killed the thread

Message withdrawn

don't know. There must be something. Are you positive she's happy at school? Might be worth checking with her teacher just in case she's picked up on anything your dd might be worried about. Is it her birthday coming up soon? She might be worried about getting older, so therefore trying to act more like a baby? Can you maybe take her out for a on your own and have a chat about it? Away from the house (where the scene of the crime is!) and kind of grown up, calm chat with her?

Her teacher had nothing but great things to say about her last week during the parent teacher consultation. She has told us how much she loves her school.

We are planning her birthday party and she is inviting the entire class plus others. I don't think she is concerned about getting older.

No, I don't think she has a urinary infection, the reason that she wee'd on the carpet last night was because she didn't want to make us angry by coming down for a wee. ..DH was watching the rugby and was insistant that the kids went to bed.

But the reason why she did it this morning?

Unfortunately, I remember doing it myself and so can sort of understand what it felt like....
I did it because it was wrong, thrilling and because I might be caught out.

If she is doing it for the same reasons, what should I do?

could be the thrill thing. Is there some kind of activity she might want to do that you could 'trade' for her stopping weeing? So, tell her she can go to Brownies/sports/whatever but you won't be able to take her unless you're sure she can wait to wee in the toilet? (you know she can, but use it as a trade off?).

Don't know. Kids always surprise you with things like this don't they - just when you think you're done with toilet stuff..! When ds1 started school last year he went through a phase which lasted a couple of months of 'needing' to do a wee literally every few mminutes. Wasn't an infection and drove us all bonkers. He would have to leave the classroom every few minutes and the same at home. Luckily his classroom teacher was very understanding and it stopped as suddenly as it started - this was last year and it's not happened since.

We put it down to the stress of starting school, even though externally he seemed to be loving it and throughout the year his confidence grew and he made friends, internally this was his way of showing the stress of it I think.

I know it is a different age, but a friends dd started doing wees in her pants aged 4.5. they eventually realised that she enjoyed changing her clothes often, she was doing it 3 or 4 times a day. it is amazing what goes through childrens minds sometimes.

i would try to speak calmly to her and find out if she has a reason for her behaviour. do not think harsh punishment would help.