DS2 weeing in playground - advice needed

[sphil]

DS2(6) has been dry for 8 months - he's reliable in all situations, asks to go verbally, can hold on well if we're in the car etc. In the summer we went camping and taught him to wee in the bushes when we were a long way from a loo. You can guess what's coming can't you...?

Since going back to school he has weed 3 or 4 times in the playground - always at lunchtime when he's not in the main area but in a smaller playground which has a sort of bark/leaf floor - possibly the problem, as he associates it with the woods??

School have tried a number of different things - taking him to the loo immediately after lunch, asking him a number of times through the break if he needs to go etc, and some days he's fine, but then they just turn their back for a second and there he is, weeing. He squats to wee rather than sticking his willy out, so it goes all over his trousers, shoes etc.

It's not just at school either - he's done it in our front garden and on a towpath and beach when public loos have been close by.

Any ideas? He doesn't respond to social stories yet (not very visual) and it's too complicated to tell him that he can only wee on the ground if there's no loo nearby, because he doesn't understand 'nearby'.

I REALLY wish we'd thought of this before teaching him to wee outside - he normally has no problem generalising to different situations. The irony is, it was really hard to get him to do it - took us ages to get him to realise it was OK And now he obviously doesn't get why it's not, in some situations.

Just a quick post as am on phone so can't type
well - maybe try to reward wees in toilet more, and ignore wees outside? So ds feels there is more value on weeing in the toilet? Classic rewrd good and ignore bad stuff...

Can't help much Sphil but made exactly the same mistake of potty training DS2 by teaching him to wee "on the grass". Result - he weed on the school field when I picked him up at lunchtime and looked really proud of himself and confused about why he wasn't being praised.

The headmistresses took me aside one afternoon and said, "linglette, I hope you don't mind me saying this but......." well my heart started racing and I started sweating - you know how it is when you're thinking "oh no what now?".

Then she said "Don't let DS2 XXee on the field".

I smiled apologetically then spent the next five days thinking "did she say "BE" on the field (ie don't let him go and see his brother on the field after leaving nursery at lunchtime0 or "WEE" on the field (ie it's still ok for him to go and see his brother but please make sure he doesn't wee on the grass).

After five days of debate with DH and various friends, none of whom could agree on whether she'd most like said "wee" or "be", I had to go up to her and say "excuse me, I 'm not sure if DS2 can be on the field but not wee on it, or if he can't be on it at all?"

Fortunately the headmistress is used to me.

It turned out she had been banning him from being on the field. She said, "I didn't know I also had to ban him from weeing on the field but now I know consider that banned too".

Anyway, he and his little mate wee'd on the field against a tree during running club on Friday....... this isn't helping at all really is it?

I've had this problem too, DS1 weeing on the grass at school, in garden, out of the catflap (really!), in paddling pools... I can't say we've totally beaten it yet, but ignoring, praising wees in the toilet and calmly repeating 'wees go in the toilet' have gradually had an effect. Everything takes so much longer than you expect to change and that's the frustrating thing, because when it's something like weeing in the playground you really, really want it to stop quickly

Oh Linglette - you've just made me laugh so much! I can well imagine the debate about 'wee' or 'be' - just the sort of thing we'd do .

You've all given me food for thought.
DS2 is not with his 1:1 at lunch time this year - he's in a small plaground with other children who need looking after, with a few TAs. If he wees, I think they rush in and get his 1:1 from her lunch. I wonder if he's doing it because he knows it'll get that reaction? Lots of lovely fuss and a familiar person coming to spend time with him?

I think the repeating of 'No weeing outside at school' might work as they are all words he understands individually. I will definitely advise them not to react - one TA in particular does, if her reaction when telling me is anything to go by! She's not cross or anything - just a bit dramatic. As am I when he does it, I must admit . Only because it's still quite a shock when ever he does it...

'No weeing outside at school' might work as they are all words he understands individually.

Hmm, still sounds quite tricky to me. Does he do categories Sphil? With DS2 I can see that would be a two-step process;

1. Not try to stop it at first but comment "oh, it's a school wee" with a neutral face. And elsewhere, "it's a wee, it's not a school wee, it's a wee".
2. Once he definitely understood the subset "school wee", start saying "school wee's go in toilet! School wees don't go on grass. School wees go in toilets, etc,etc, ad toileteum.

Alternatively, can you start introducing categories of places?

So if you are somewhere outside where he can wee say "yes, that's a weeing field/ that's a weeing bush/ a weeing place".

Then after a few weeks introduce "NO! that's not a weeing place!!!!!!"

I like the 'school wees go in toilet' idea. But I also want him to stop weeing in our front garden/on the beach/on the towpath in front of hordes of hikers...

My sister suggested taking a bottle when we go out, so he never has to wee on the ground. She says she carried one around for years - four children, all NT!