son at preschool?
bttrflyprnc7
member
my son is almost 4 and we started preschool this september 4 (he goes tuesday and thursday mornings from 8-12) and last week he had a pee accident on tuesday and a poop accident last thursday right after i left. so we have been talking about it all weekend. this morning when i got home from dropping him off i logged into the camera where i can watch him and a few mintues later he pooped his pants again.
I don't understand why he is doing this, he has been potty trained for a year now since last september. never has a poop accident. he is a very shy boy around adults. so i am thinking he is too shy to tell them he needs to go. but i kept telling him all morning if he has to go and right before i left him at school too. i am getting angry at him for doing this again today. i don't know what to do or say to him when he comes home. I hope the teachers don't think he is not fully potty trained and won't let him in this room. what should i do?
Re: son at preschool?
I think it's one of two things:
1) Most likely -- he is, as you said, a shy kid who is adjusting to having to ask to go to the bathroom. I'd work with his teacher on this. What's the routine for making sure kids feel comfortable going potty at school? Helping him understand what the routine is, and that there IS actually a procedure for when you have to pee and poop at school, might solve the problem.
Does he normally poop in the morning? If so, maybe you can get him up a little earlier so that the poop can happen at home, before school. If there's no particular pattern to his poops, then it may be nerves that are making him have to poo more at school
2) Less likely, but possible -- he is testing to see whether you will still make him go to school if he has accidents.
The main thing to do is not to show your anger with him. Your anger is probably coming from either your embarrassment or your disappointment in him for not being the "big boy" you expected him to be. Know that the teachers have probably dealt with this situation many times before. It's almost a lock that he's not the first kid in the history of the school who had multiple accidents during his adjustment to preschool. Take it in stride, talk to him about the procedure, take him to the potty at school before drop off, and work with the teachers. They should be experts at watching for the "gotta go" signs in kids this age and helping to steer them to the bathroom.
My son started this behavior right before he was about to go to kindergarten this year (he was 4 about to be 5 and had been fully potty trained for over 2 years). I started to get angry. But once I realized it happens alot when kids know a transition is about to happen or has happened I tried to figure out how I could ease his nervousness. I decided to turn it into a contest. On the days he did not have an accident he got to play the Wii (his absolute favorite thing in the world right now) for 30 minutes. He was never allowed to play the video game during the week so this was a BIG deal to him! I told the daycare about the contest so she could remind him during the day. He had maybe one or 2 accidents after the contest started and when he realized that he really could not play if he had an accident, the accidents stopped. When he had the couple of accidents we didn't fuss at him about it we just reminded him that he could not play the Wii that day and let it alone.
Maybe you could try something like this with your son. Is there something he really likes to do (or eat) that he doesn't get to do all of the time that you wouldn't mind allowing for awhile until the behavior stops? I hated letting my DS play the Wii during the week but it was worth it to have the accidents stop (contest lasted about 3 weeks).