School toilet problem

[bogbother]

Ds has acute anxiety (ASD/PDA) and has told me that for the whole week so far he has used the toilet once when he really,really had to.The rest of the time he holds it in until he gets home and won't drink too much. He says it's because the cubicle locks are broken, the loo's are dirty and there's not any soap. He has mentioned it to TA who has said she will look into it . He hates the thought of going when other children are about so I suggested that he asks to be excused in a lesson so he doesn't get the crush of everyone going together. Apparently no-one is allowed to go in lesson time and for the time he did go he walked out of class and TA said he could only be a minute and that she would be timing him! It wasn't a problem last year as he was attending part time so managed to hold on until lunch when he went home . Any suggestions of getting round this?

talk to the school to see if his perception of not being allowed in lessons is true.

ask them how they are going to deal with the problem given that drinking little during the day can lead to dehydration, not help his leatrning and be detrimental to his kidney function infections etc leading to time off..

can he have a squirty gel thingy in his bag?

www.bog-standard.org/adults_guidelines.aspx

He does have a hand gel he carries about but doesn't take it to school- I will suggest that. The trouble is he doesn't want to be seen to be 'different'. It probably is true about not being allowed out of class as they are pretty strict about things. Apparently HT told them all in assembly that if they behave badly he will have them out of the school so that really helps ds's anxiety levels!

Is he in secondary? It's very usual not to be allowed out of lessons to use the toilet, but in my school your DS would be given a medical card which would mean he would be allowed to do so.

Thanks red - very useful.
Madonna no,not secondary yet. I will try to speak to school about a card to be excused.

Agree with susan this cannot be allowed to continue. My ds had/has huge anxiety about toilets too, and ended up really ill (serious vomiting) with a bladder infection last term as he was holding it in for hours.

They need to come up with a strategy for helping him through this.

First thing is to allow him to go during lesson times if he needs to and stop timing him immediately - that is not just counter-productive but downright cruel Talk about placing extra stress and anxiety on him ffs! And allowing him to go outside set times is just called accommodating his SN - refusal to do so could be called discrimatory. Not suggesting you go in all guns blazing about this but have it up your sleeve if school get difficult.

In my ds's case, we have put in place a reward-based system, and are taking things step by step. First thing was getting him to just spend a bit of time in the toilet, with no demand to use it. Did this by making games - eg hiding toys in there, getting him and a friend to find them. When he was comfortable being in there (at first he was like yours and didn't even like being in there when other children were there as it was crowded etc), it moved on to using the loo. At that point, no demands for flushing (though he did have to wash his hands). Then flushing. At each stage, he was rewarded.

Now we still have a token system, where his TA will give him a token for 5 minutes on the ipad (when he gets home) each time he uses the loo.

Not sure of your ds's age or situation re statement but would something like this work do you think? How supportive are school generally?

He has a full time sm as they refused to have him full time because of 'health and safety' reasons but agreed to have him all day as funding is now in place. Have a complaint ongoing about that which they are upset about apparently so haven't approached them to discuss this issue yet. He just doesn't like going in because of the 'dirt' so don't think rewarding him for going in there will appeal somehow.

My ds had similar reasons for avoiding it - smell, noise, didn't want to touch anything, the sound of the flush, the sound of the pipes - you name it, he had a reason for being scared of it!

The reason why we broke it all down and rewarded for each step was to try and overcome this avoidance. We figured that he has to use the toilet, and even if we did everything possible to try and minimise the things he didn't like, and change the environment as much as possible, but even so he would always find something else (he has even refused some toilets because of the sound of the lightbulb ...) so what else could we do? We had no choice really but to find a way of overcoming the problem (can't move the mountain to mohammed and all that).

See the problem about approaching school with this, but it can't carry on can it? They need to find a way of helping with this - as someone else said, you could ask them what they intend to do about it?

My DD has just started secondary school. She has various anxieties, one of them being the bad weather i.e. clouds going dark, rain, thunder & lightning etc. and she NEEDS the toilet asap!

I had a meeting last term and they agreed to give her a toilet pass - could you also ask the school for one? There is no way the TA should be timing!!

Oh I didn't realise how common this is . DS has a problem with school toilets too. He drinks little during the day and holds it in so he doesn't have to use the school toilets. He has had several nasty urinary tract infections as a result and we ended up in A&E after the last time.
My DS has just started secondary and this is a battle I am about to face there as the last infection was 2 weeks ago.
But to try to help, in primary DS was allowed out during class time and a TA would go too and stand outside the boys toilets to make sure no-one else would go in during that time. She tried desperately to encourage him to use them but he was very stubborn and didn't want to unless he was desperate. He also doesn't really recognise thirst signals.
I think that the trick to getting him to use the toilets is to actually make him drink lots so that there is no option but to go and to talk to the school and get the TA to take him 5 mins before the end of a lesson so that it is quiet and safe and to stand outside to keep them empty while he uses them ( or let him use a staff toilet/disabled toilet which will be empty and cleaner).
This counts as a reasonable adjustment for SN as far as I can see and may even become a medical need too.