Advice for My 9 Year Old Sons Behavior

This type of thing is best left to a dr or phsychologist to answer. Dont ground him or punish him until you find out what is causeing it. Something you are unaware of may have happened to him and could have traumatised him. find out whats going on before assuming its behavioral.

Bedwetting and accidents can be the signs of a medical issue or mental issues due to trauma or stress.

Good luck- A.

Here is a good website:

http://www.kidshealth.org/parent/general/sick/encopresis_...

Hope this helps. :)

P. H
Wellness Consultant

Maybe talk to your physician or urologist.

PLEASE, PLEASE do not punish your son for something he cannot control. Take him to a Doctor or seek some counseling for him. Punishing him will only make him feel he must be bad. I know, I am 56 years old and was punished for the first 7 years of my life and it took me years to realize I was not a bad person. It sounds like it is a emotional problem.

I cured my son by taking away anything with sugar from his diet and he had no more accidents.

Be certain that this is a behavorial issue. One of my children actually had a physical issue. If your Dr. says this is not the case you might check the people he is involved with. Again, from personal knowledge, I know that
sometimes this type of behavior may stem from issues outside the home. He may not seem to mind the goodnights, but then again, he may not feel free to express his real feelings and you cannot force him to do so. Grounding will not help because you cannot control his body and he
may not be able to either. This may be a matter of trust and acceptance on your part. Once he relaxes and feels
able to do so he may be able to share more information on what is happening. My child actually sat in my lap and cried with relief when I explained that age would actually
lend control but until then we would face this issue together.
Good luck.

Does he have any problem with constipation? If his bowels aren't moving properly, then that could affect his bladder and urine flow.

Maybe a visit to the chiropractor could help, too. We've been before and it's amazing everything that can be corrected when everything is lined up and free to work properly. Good luck!

Please don't punish him. No child wants to wet the bed. We had these same issues with our daughter. Take him to your family dr or a urologist. There are several options for help. Just please understand he is not wetting on purpose.

Take him to a urologist to see if he's having urinary tract infections or bladder spasms. My son had bladder spasms that would cause him to urinate with NO warning. He took meds for about 2 years and then the spasms stopped.

Please dont discipline him. I have friends that have kids with this problem. It usually is a medical problem.The majority of them happen to be boys. Please get him checked out by a doctor. My brother had this problem when he was younger and my parents would never of dreamed of diciplining him for it. It turns out that he had a problem with his kidneys. They are embarrased enough without the discipline. Good luck!

This could be a medical problem... our bodies make a chemical that tells us we need to wakeup to go to the bathroom. If that's the case, there's a simple pill he can take to add this chemical to his body... it worked wonders for my sisterin law.

It could also be an emotional issue. Perhaps a bully is picking on him, or it's his way of coping with stress... in which case, a pediatrician can recommend a counselor. The counselor can help give him the tools he needs to cope with stress.

Remember, a 9 year old has stress... it doesn't seem like stress to us because we have the tools to cope with those things as well as larger perspective.

Unless your child is unusually defiant, this isn't about misbehaving, it's about a problem to be solved.

I'd start by saying, "You know what? I think I've misunderstood. I thought you were misbehaving when you'd have accidents. I'm sorry I thought that, and I'm sorry if I hurt your feelings. Now I think I was wrong, and that there's a problem we don't know about. So I scheduled an appt for you at our kid-doctor. You don't have to be afraid, he won't hurt you. He'll help us solve this problem!
Good luck!

I have 3 girls. My youngest is in the potty traing stage now but.......... Teh firs girl was easy. She asked fro a potty chair and loved it. The middle girl would not even look at teh potty chair, would not practice, nothing. But one morning she told me she wanted panties as we got ready for day care. She wore them that day and has never gone back. She has also never had an accident. She is 5. Now the first girl(who is 7 and will be 8 in oct.)still has to wear pull ups at night. Seh is a heavy sleeper and nothing wakes her up. I have her go to bathroom before bed and yet her pull ups are wet 95% of the time in the morning. There are also several days that seh even goes thru the pull up as well. She also has trouble trying to make it to the bathroom. When she says she has to go, she has to go then. I keep extra panties in her school bag and i always talk to the teachers to let thme know that she has urgency. I use to get very upset. Thinking she was being lazy. But now we work together. I never want her to be embarrassed at school or a sleep over. Kids start labeling you in elementary school. I send her pull ups and a wal-mart sack and pj's with pants or shorts when she has a sleep over. We have practiced how she goes to the bathroom alone and takes care of her pantie switch. In the morning she ties up her pull ups and puts them in her bag for home. I did take her to a child uroligist several months ago. I wanted to make sure i was not over looking anything. She is little for her age and i always felt that maybe her bladder was just small and not quite up to the right size yet. We went to childrens in dallas. A wondferful facility. After many tests...the doctor seems to think that at this juncture she just has extra pressure on her bladder. They found her bladder to be normal size and functioning correctly. A concern they look for is it backing up into the kidneys. Everything was great. The doctor thinks that the pressure on her bladder is coming from her bowels. And that with a light medication and a small change in her diet, that she will see success. Teh doctor put her on a low dose fiber/laxative to keep her bowel movements on track. I never even thought about that. I was so concerned about her dripping in her panties or having an accident trying to make it to the bathroom, that i never noticed if she went poopie everyday. We have been on the medice for a few months now. I am also trying to add more fiber to all of our diets. She has had great success. I hope this information help you. Good luck!
I FORGOT TO ADD ONE MORE THING.....
I ORDERED HER SOME PULL UP STYLE PANTIES FROM ONE STEP AHEAD. SHE USES THESE FOR SCHOOL. THEY ARE THICKER AND HOLD MORE LIKE A PULL UP. SO IF SHE DRIPS OR HAS AN ACCIDENT AT SCHOOL IT WON'T GO INTO HER CLOTHES. THEY ALSO LOOK LIKE REAL PANTIES AND TEHY ARE NOT CRUNCHY SOUNDING LIKE THE PULL UPS. THAT WAY SHE IS NOT EMBARRASSED. THIS PROBLEM IS A WORRY FOR HER.

My best advice is to try to look at the situation from his point of view: first, he's had to share the most important person in his life with another man (how long did he believe he was the "man of the family". He "shares" you with a job and now you are having another baby. His misbehavior is forcing you to spend more time and concentrate more effort on him and him alone. You've learned that punishment doesn't work, it is just getting him what he wants and needs - your attention. Quit giving him attention for the bad behavior. Make a little list of things you can do with your son that will be good for both of you - like a short walk to the park twice a week or cooking dinner together. Tell him that for every two days he is "dry" the two of you will do an activity on the list. Make sure he understands that by doing these activities he is doing his part to help you. If he's been good Mon. - Fri., plan an activity that the entire family does together. Good luck. P. - age 55, mother of one son.

When someone wets the bed after they are asleep, punishing or taking away priviledges isn't going to help. I know of two different friends that said dairy products caused their child to wet the bed, and if they had none that afternoon or evening all was o.k. The guy that played little Joe on the Cartwright family, said in high school he wet the bed and how embarresed he was, but was of course asleep so couldn't help it. He may have a small bladder.

He may need to see a doctor. It may be psychological.

Please don't make this a discipline issue. There's no way that a child would use this tactic to show defiance. It's one of the most low self-esteem inducing events in a child's life and making it a discipline issue only re-enforces to the child that it's something they're doing wrong when it's not. It is definitely a medical or food thing. Have you tried removing dairy from his diet? In hindsight that was likely a contributor to my own problem. I wet the bed at nite just like your son until I was almost 10. Neither of my two sons did but that's because they didn't have dairy in their diet (and only had it at their father's insistence when they were older and we later learned they too had a dairy allergy).
As well, some kid's bodies do not produce enough anti-diuretic hormone (ADH) (Or sometimes referred to as vasopressin on blood tests), so that their kidneys just absolutely cannot hold onto the urine. I'm an adult and have this problem and as a child it took me until age 10 for my body to learn to wake up on my own to pee at nite if I had to. Please take him to a pediatrician and have this tested. There is a synthetic hormone they can give him to help keep him dry at nite. Please do this ASAP and talk to your son and let him know that you know this isn't his fault and that his body just isn't working quite the way it should right now.

You need to get him a potty alarm. You can get them on ebay it worked a miracle on my son the same age as yours doing the same thing. Look it up!!
http://cgi.ebay.com/New-DryNite-Urine-Alarm-Bed-wetting-P...

this is what we got!!

Hello C.,

maybe he needs to be checked by the pediatrician to make sure nothing is wrong. does he get UTIs? holds it too long during the day? punishing him might not change it.Think of it this way, would you punish him if he was throwing up in the middle of the night? Good luck and lots of patience.

Well my daughter was potty trained and about at 5 yrs old she started having accidents. We finally took her to a urologist, and he did a sonogram and said that she had shrunk her bladder by waiting to long to go the bathroom. The muscle wall gets stronger and thicker when they do this. So I would maybe consider seeing a doctor. Also encourage him to go to the bathroom as soon as he realizes he needs to go.

W. D

Don't know what it is with people punishing their kids for having potty accidents! I remember wetting the bed as a teenager and believe me, there was no way I was doing that on purpose just to be bad. Being punished and/or belittled just makes it so much worse.
You didn't mention if you have taken him to a doctor so maybe you should try that. And then if there is nothing medically wrong with him, then all you can do is be patient and wait for him to outgrow it. Please do not make an issue out of it.

I would recommend getting him evaluated by a Child Psychiatrist or a Pediatrician that is experienced with this type of issue. We are foster parents and we had a 9 year old that had accidents also. He was on medication and it really helped him for the most part. Some kids really need the medications and some kids don't and can get help other ways.

Have you talked to the counselors or teachers at school to see what all is going on at school? There may be something that the school can do differently or help out in the classroom. Maybe there is some things going on that is bothering him at school? Kids a lot of times may be experiencing problems but they don't tell you. Play Therapists are great and if there is issues going on at school or home you could try Play Therapy. Kids express themselves thru their play, so you can usually tell in how they play with their toys. It may be the new baby and new marriage, that is a lot of change for your son. I would recommend more Mommy/Son time where it is you and your son going out to the park or doing something special once a week.

If it has been going on for 2 years, then he may need some assistance from the medicine or play therapy or maybe seeing a nutritionist, might even help. The Child Study Center is great in Fort Worth for kids. It does take awhile to get in. If you need some other recommendations for Psychiatrists or Play Therapists, let me know and we can give you some recommendations.

It may be stress or it could be his body is having difficulty with this. Hope this helps. C.