Autism Treatment Center of America Forum

[Lisa Monaghan]

My son is 8 we are actively doing Son Rise but he still attends school (not by my choice we are waiting school board approval to remove him). My son is making great progress with eye contact, interaction and new words but the potty training is getting worse. We have always gone back and forth on his urinating on the toilet, his teachers inform me for the most part he uses toilet at school to urinate he has never had a bowel movement at school (at any of his schools for that matter) he holds it in until he gets home. He can have as many as 4 to 5 bowel movements in on night and they are an epic size, to make matters worse for the past 8 months he no longer poops in his pull up he uses the floor. Occasionally if I am not quick enough to catch him he will clean it up himself (gets very messy) and he will put it in the toilet and flush it (so I know he knows where it goes). I never react when he poops on the floor, I just clean it up. I try to get him to come with me to see I am flushing it or even to flush it himself, this worked for about 2 weeks but now he just refuses and sometimes tantrums. I try to encourage him to use the toilet when I can see he needs to go but he acts as if he is afraid of it or just tells me "NO", he also will not pee in the toilet at home (though thankfully he does for the most part pee in his pull up). We have recently moved and the house is carpeted and rented. I use my carpet shampooer constantly but it never feels clean and I worry about the hygiene issues for the entire family as he will go in all rooms besides the bathroom. When we are in the play room he clenches up and I leave him in the room to have his poop on his own as do my playroom workers. I do this because he can hold his bowel movements for days and I worry this will lead to health issues. I have tried using his motivations I have given him books and toy story characters but he flees no matter what I offer as motivation. I worry this is because of an ABA toilet training method I used right before we started Son Rise where he was made to sit on the toilet until he used it and then allowed short breaks that increased with consistency. I Hated that treatment and I think we may have traumatized him and he never pooped while doing this for treatment for the three weeks we did it (not on the toilet, anyway). Please help as we are going to be staying with my mom for 2 months this summer and doing his Son Rise program in her home. She is a cleanliness freak to the point of OCD (she dusts her baseboards for fun) she says she will be understanding but I know it will be a struggle for her

[BeckyDamgaard]

Hello,

Thank you for your detailed question! Congratulations to you on how far your son has come with his eye contact, language and interaction. It sounds like you have been doing a wonderful job helping him so far!

It sounds like there are two separate things going on. The first one being control! I have worked with hundreds of children who will hold their poop in. In a world that is unpredictable for him, your son is craving a sense of control and something that he and only he can be in complete control of is when and how he poops, let's face it, no one can force us to poop, it is completely up to us. So to help him with this I would try and do as much one on one playroom time in a non-distracting environment as you can where he gets 99% control in that room. The fact that he is holding his poop in at school also tells me that he is having challenges relaxing in that environment, and it's fantastic that you are taking steps to take him out of school which sounds perfect for him.

Around the house, I would lay some tarps down on the carpet so that you can at least clean up easily and protect the carpets for now. This doesn't have to be forever, just for now until you can create a routine with him. I would invest in a cmping toilet (we have a Portapotti265) and we use it with some children that are having challenges sitting on the real toilet, maybe it's a sensory issue and he doesn't like the water in the toilet or the way it flushes (when I was younger, I would be scared to fall down the toilet).

Sesondly, I would look into his diet. It sounds like he has some backed up poop issues and severe constipation, changing his diet can help with that along with giving him warm prune juice (a natural laxitive). If his poops are of epic size then it could also be painful for him to poop and this will all effect the way he wants to poop.

I would talk to your Mom about the summer and make a plan with her to do the same. Put the tarps down and explain that right now the focus is to give him as much control as possible, not to react to him when he does it and to see how she feels about the fact that he is doing this. Try and help her to feel at ease with it and to help him feel accepted and loved, even through this time.

The summer holidays will be a great time while he's out of school to create some consistency. I would really look for the signs for when he's about to go (e.g. does he go quiet? Doe he squat in the corner? Does he press on his stomach?) and then when you see the signs, explain lovingly to him that he could sit on the camping toilet and relax and poop. You can look on the internet to learn how to do an instestinal massage on his stomach which can help some children. I would also designate a plastic bowl to catch the poop to put in the toilet if it's too late. Talk to him throughout the day about how he can use the toilet and that when you poop it feels good on your body. Role model poping in the toilet for him by exclaiming when you can feel that you have a poop coming (e.g. "I feel like I need to poop, I'm going to do it in the toilet!"), then be excitied afterwards as though you have really achieved something, there are lots of taboo's around poop and he needs to know that it's a natural and normal thing that everyone does and talking to him about it, celebrating him for all his successess and giving himlots of explanatins and control will be really great!

I wish you all the best, we are all cheering you on here at The Son-Rise Program!

[mother7xs]

Lisa,
My son also does this. I haven't had any success on sitting on the potty but when he didn't go for days and days I asked my nutritionists what to do about a laxative and he put my son on George's aloe vera juice. He does go regularly now (everyday) and I keep him on it everyday. I give him 2 tblsp. twice a day. It doesn't have a taste so you can give it to him straight or mixed in with something. I give it by dropper. I hope the advice that you got on the potty helps you, I will be trying that too. We tried the ABA way and I can't do that to mine either. Hope this helps a little! Rachel