10 year old won't use toilet

[Katiemonkey15]

We are at our wits end now with 10yo dd who has fairly frequent accidents in her pants because she just won't go to the loo.

She eats a good diet, no food allergies (we tested), no learning or behavioural issues and nobody else in the family has any issues. We have a 3yo who just toilet trained like a dream yet were dealing with this with a 10yo. I do try not to get too cross or overly embarrass her about it but it's really tough because she will literally sit on the sofa and poo her pants rather than take herself to the loo. Sometimes her sister will tell me that she's doing it cos she can tell by her body language (and the smell and somwtkmes noise) but dd herself just sits there and shows no urgency to get herself to the loo. Unless I frog march her and make her sit she won't go to the loo at all.

Have tried incentives, punishments and nothing seems to work. GP thought she might be constipated so we tried laxative drink sachets for a while but only made it worse as gave her diarrhea.

Anyone any advice on how to basically re-toilet train a ten year old?

What happens at school,?

Is she too busy watching TV to bother to go?

A degree of crossness would be appropriate here I think assuming no SEN.

@Tel12

We spoke to her teacher and she doesn't seem to use the loo in school either, even with a bit of encouragement from teacher. She hasn't had an accident in school yet luckily but we always have spare nickers in her bag just in case

I would speak to the GP and ask for a referral to the Continence Clinic. There may ba variety of issues here and I am sure you want to help DD get it sorted ASAP.

My 8 year old soils himself like this. He usually poos himself in the evening. We have started taking him to sit on the loo 15 mins after eating his dinner. This is helping with reducing the amount of soiling and sometimes there is even no soiling.

He says he just isn’t feeling the need to go, so we are trying to get him into a habit of going and dealing with it like that.

GP also said it was constipation ( and he had developed this), but he’s not now. Ha does have one movicol sachet a day.

At ten, she will not be soiling herself out of laziness. There clearly is something going on that she can’t help. You need to be calm with her, but consistent with taking her to the loo at the same time each day.

I would go back to GP and ask for a referral to an incontinence clinic ( or pay privately if you can). It’s a two year NHS wait where we are.

@LittleBearPad
Yes she honestly just seems too lazy a lot of the time. Tried incentives to get her to just sit on the loo for a while after dinner in the evenings and she wouldn't even do that of her own accord. She's done it in the car when we were minutes after stopping and she insisted she didn't need to go and I honestly wanted to throw her out of the car

@awesomeaardvark
I really don't think she's incontinent. She had no issues when she was younger or toilet training first time round

Has something scared her about bathrooms / toilets?

Has she started her periods yet? If so are they worrying her?

My son will insist he doesn’t want to go but then will do a full poo if we take him to the toilet.

I think something has gone wrong with his ability to understand the signals his body is giving.

i just don’t believe a ten year old is shitting herself for a laugh. She olds enough to realise this is embarrassing and also old enough to not want to show you she feels bad.

Making her feel anxious or shame around emptying her bowels is going to make it harder for her to relax enough to read her body’s signals and go to the loo.

Emptying one’s bowels is very habit based, so get her into a routine of going to sit on the loo at the same time after eating each day.

@literarybitery
Yes we've tried sitting her on the loo after dinner too but I just wish she'd do it independently. She has to reminded or even physically taken and forced. It was movicol we were given too and it gave her diarrhea

What are the consequences of her actions? Tbh this sounds like a much bigger issue; but if you really thinks it's her laziness or lack of respect I'd treat it as any other poor behaviour- actions have consequences so she should be cleaning up after herself and maybe she had to use an incontinence pad to sit on, or adult diapers? Maybe the embarrassment of regressing might kickstart her toilet usage again?
Has she ever been fully toilet trained? If so what happened that caused the change?

@LittleBearPad
No, no sign of periods yet thankfully. I understand people have a thing about not wanting to use unfamiliar bathrooms but dd won't even use our own!

Does she go on the toilet for a wee?

can she take an iPad to the toilet to try for a poo? That was the continence teams recommendation for my daughter who had chronic constipation.

I would also ask for a referral to continence team

We have to tell our son too, but it’s slowly working. He now knows we won’t back down and he has to go. And it’s really reduced the soiling. He is getting into the habit.

If you did the disimpaction regime it does create diarrhea at the end stages. You then move onto a low dose for an extended period, till normal bowel control and habit is established.

Is this a recent thing or been like it all along? Have you thought about getting her a watch that beeps on the hour or two and she has to go no matter what when it beeps? Also remind her to check in with her bladder / bowel and see if she wants to go, a check-in of sorts when it beeps.

Is anything going on at school that you're unaware of? Our DD had some issues with this when she was being bullied.

Please don’t do this OP.

IMO often these things are indicators of some psychological stress going on that you might be unaware of. If she is 10 is she in year 6? going through SATS maybe? bullying? Scared of next school up? These things could all be factors.

I should say I have read other posters on here have similar issues and had success with being rigid about taking their child to the toilet a set time after eating. It’s where I got the idea and it’s really helped.

@DillyDallyingAllDay
I've lost it with her many times but nothing seems to work. She seems embarrassed at times but not enough to do anything about it. I've told her before that she's on her last pair of nickers because I'm not washing or buying anymore

She may have developed a fear of toilets/defecating for some reason. It can only take a small thing for this to happen & it then develops into a phobia. I’d try to explore this with her or get a Psychologist assessment.

I think you’re going to have to go with repeated reminders and taking her to the loo regularly - hopefully it will help create a habit. There must be a service your GP can refer you to.

Are you sure she’s not constipated? She might be impacted higher up and need an impaction.
Eric the bowel and bladder charity have a helpline with very knowledgeable people available to speak to you

@murgugug
She's in year 5. No issues we know of and have spoken to teacher. She has friends and seems happy in school. She doesn't go on or have sleepovers though for obvious reasons and she is fine with that even though she's missing out

To confirm - she isn’t wetting herself as well as pooing herself?

I'm really struggling to believe there's no special needs or behavioural issues. No NT ten year old would be ok with doing this.