It seems so bizarre that child would behave this way. Is this kid likely to have psychological issues as an adult?
Our year of toilet training hell
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I don’t think so. My oldest refused to poop on the toilet for a long time. She would hold it so much that it constipated her. We ended up getting a suppository which she freaked out over but made her go right away. It only took a few times of that and she started going on the toilet. This went of for a few months at least and she finally gave in. Now she goes fine so I don’t think it’s that unusual.
If my kids are at all typical, this is standard procedure for constipation. My oldest used to fall into this pattern when we went on vacation. She wouldn’t poop for a couple of days because of the unfamiliar environment, the lack of a routine, and the fact that my wife and I weren’t really paying attention. She’d try to poop and it would hurt, so she’d give up and go about her business. Then the stomach pain would start, but she still wouldn’t poop because every time she tried it would start to hurt. Once they equate pooping with pain, they just won’t poop. It could get pretty awful, with us forcing her to sit on the toilet while she screamed and cried until she was hysterical.
Eventually the laxatives would kick in and she’d poop in her sleep (she was still wearing diapers at night at the time). She’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming and we’d change her; she’d have massive hard turds covered with slimy poo from the laxative. It was gross.
The worst it got involved me giving her a laxative suppository. Fuck that, never again. Most traumatic thing I’ve ever had to do as a parent.
Things would take weeks to return to normal. We eventually learned our lesson and started being proactive with the laxatives. If she’d go a day and a half without pooping, we’d start giving her the poo juice. Then it wouldn’t hurt so she wouldn’t freak out and try to hold it in.
If all the medical experts they consulted don’t know why he was doing it, why would a bunch of strangers who’ve never met the kid know any better?
Interesting story. Makes me glad I’m not gonna have kids, though.
Truly, little kids are a lot more complex than most people give them credit for, and there are very few things over which they have meaningful control. Pooping is one of those very few things. (I say this somewhat light-heartedly, but I do have an anorexic niece. She had undiagnosed GERD as an infant and toddler, which was finally fixed with a minor surgery to repair the malfunctioning valve. By the time anyone realized that she wasn’t just picky, she was actually in pain, she was well down the road to anorexia. She’s now a senior in high school, excelling in music and academics, but she remains painfully small and thin. She has been treated for anorexia since age 7. This isn’t to suggest that the described child from this blog will develop ongoing control issues, just my limited experience.)
As someone who has never had a kid and won’t be for some time at least, it does seems like the whole “he’s six years old and we give him pull-ups whenever he has to take a crap” part is really screwed up. She kinda quickly glossed over it, but that fact that they still gives their six-year old diapers is gonna be a long-term problem.
This was pretty much our experience too, with our younger kid. If pooping hurts, a lot of kids will simply refuse to do it, and it only takes maybe two days of not pooping for whatever reason to start the awful cycle. In her case it first started when she was sick and threw up once; it was a few days before her body got going again and by then it hurt. We would have to cajole her into drinking milk of magnesia, or do glycerin suppositories. It happened on and off for over a year–sometimes things would be fine, and then some little thing would start it going. Then I discovered Miralax and my life got way better (why the doc didn’t tell us this in the first place, I do not know). She’s been fine for a long time now, no problems at all.
Once it got so bad I wound up taking her into the ER at midnight for an enema–which then didn’t work. It was horrible. 
It happened with my youngest son as a toddler. He would hardly ever go, and he would get all compacted. His doctor said it probably had hurt once when he went, and then he was afraid to go. I ended up giving him an enema every few days. It wasn’t that bad, actually- I’d do it and then immediately put him on the toilet (he was right about two, so not too heavy) and then he’d go. I got to be quite a pro at it, actually. I wonder if it was recommended or tried by these parents, and why would it need to be done in an emergency room? I did it in the living room, with him lying down, on a diaper.
In my case, that’s a long and boring story. I did give her enemas at home when things got desperate, and when it didn’t work I tried taking her into prompt care, where they said they didn’t do things like that and I’d have to take her into the ER. I thought that was dumb, but small-town life I guess. So the ER was the end of a process of me doing enemas and it not working. She was in pain and I didn’t know what else to do.
Ah, ok.
My poor pooper is now almost 13, and still holds it in. He only goes about once a week. He will then give birth to a brown baby and often clog the toilet with it. But at least the need for enemas didn’t last more than a couple of months.
Well, that was disturbing. I have heard of some autistic and developmentally challenged kids holding it in for a week at a time like that, but I’ve never heard of a six year old asking for a diaper to shit in. Next time I feel annoyed or put upon about something with my daughter I’m going to thank my lucky stars we’ve never had to deal with anything like this.
My youngest sister was chronically constipated a toddler and young child. It was more a nerves thing (she was always extremely sensitive and emotional) than a control/pottytraining issue with her, but once she got constipated at all, it just became worse and worse. I remember many hours with her sobbing in pain. Also how many times we had to stop while going anywhere in the car to try to coax her to ‘go’ on her normal schedule. Thankfully she grew out of it.
I don’t think it’s all that uncommon.
I thought I knew stubborn until I read that story. My father once kept my brother on the toilet for a full 8 hours and he produced nothing. My father relented and the instant he got off the toilet, whoosh out of both orifices. But he was trained soon after. My one son at age 3 couldn’t pee unless he was wearing a diaper. So we let him go around the house bare-bottomed for a couple days and found he could. I know he was trained by age 4. My other son was not trained as his 4th birthday approached. We told him that it was impossible for a 4 year old not to be toilet trained and therefore we could not have a 4th birthday party for him. Six days later, he was completely trained (and we had the party).
I don’t know what would happened if a kid entered kindergarten untrained. My three year old grandson was pretty much trained by his day-care.
Some friends of mine are in a very similar situation. Their son refuses to have anything to do with the toilet - pee or poop. Apparently there was an occasion where he so steadfastly refused to pee that he wound up in the ER with a catheter.
Kids these days. :rolleyes: