My 6 Year Old Son Wont Stop Pooping in His Pants.

My brother had this problem at around age 4 and my grandmother had custody of him and would sit in the bathroom very patiently with him and read him books, he would get relaxed and calmed downed and that atleast got him going in the potty it was a fun one on one attention thing with Grandma. Then he got a quarter for his piggy bank after each time he sucessfully went poop. After a few weeks or months with a huge amount of patience on my Grandma's part, she no longer needed to sit in there with him and accidents never happened again.

He could also be constipated which can take weeks to get back on track. And can definately cause accidents.

I had the same problem with my daughter. What it was she was severly constipated and when new bowel would be created it would just push it out. So go to the doctor and get an xray of his abdomine and that should let you know.

I went through the same thing with my daughter at that age. It wasn't just pooping her pants. She also wet her pants. She does have kidney reflux, grade 4, and has been on septra since she was a newborn. She then had a bilateral reimplantation of her ureters when she was 1. I took her to the doctor and found out it wasn't her condition that was causing the accidents. She just didn't want to stop playing or whatever was going on and take two minutes to go to the bathroom. I sent extra clothes with her to school for awhile and then it got to the point where I threatened to make her wear a diaper to school. She didn't believe me. She came home from school with another accident and I went to the store and bought pull ups. I showed them to her and said one more accident and you will have to wear one to school. Next day, she had an accident. The following day she went to school with a diaper on. She HATED it. Everytime she walked you could hear the squish, squish of the diaper. She came home and told me how she hated it and wanted to wear her underwear again. I told her fine, however if she has an accident, she knows what will happen. Never had an accident again. One day of embarrassment was enough for her. This may sound cruel to you, however we exhausted all options and had no other recourse. It worked and I'm thankful. She remembers to this day what she had to do, however she is not scarred from it. She understands why I did it. Good luck to you.

J.

I know it is very fusturating, and probaly even more so, believe it or not, for your son. Try and be patient. Try and not make a big deal about it, he may be feeling too uncomfortable to practice pooping in the toilet with all the riga-ma-roll made over stickers and video games. He may just need some privacy.

This was going on with my son also starting around six and it lasted until this year (he is 9 now). We tried lots of things too, and none ever really seemed to work. Then last year I basically tried to clear my mind and forget about being so completely frustrated by this issue all the time. Suddenly it hit me - maybe he just did not have enough body awareness to recognize the signs, especially when so many more interesting things at school were demanding his attention. I asked him if he thought this might be a problem for him and he agreed. We came up with the idea of having him not wear underwear for a while, and made sure he understood the consequences of having an accident without underwear - how there would be nothing to stop the mess and it may end up on the floor and be very embarrasing, etc. This turned out to be just the motivation he needed to get his butt (pardon my pun) to the restroom to "take care of his body" when he noticed the signs, and he never had an accident like that. This may sound kind of harsh, but I am a big believer in 'natural consequences'. Sometimes we well-meaning parents try to protect kids too much and the result is they just avoid taking responsibility for themselves. This may not be the right approach with your kid, as every child is different, but it worked great for us.
Good luck!

It sounds like secondary encopresis.

My five year old has been doing this exact thing for about a year. See your pediatrician and ask for an Xray. He was holding in his bowel movements and so when he finally DID have one, his rectal muscles were so stretched out that he couldn't feel when he had to go and would have accidents.

The X-ray for my son revealed almost total blockage in his intestines, and they prescribed Miralax (a laxative). This is a powder you mix into his drinks in the morning and evening. The way it's made, it will not absorb into his system and dehydrate him like other laxatives will, so it's completely safe for children. There are some kids with developmental disabilities who take it their whole lives, so not to worry.

We were also told to give him Colace (sp?) for the first two weeks, which is a stool softener, just to get things moving. They also suggested an enema on the first day. Treatment should last at LEAST three months, even though you will start seeing an improvement after only about four weeks. Stick it out for the whole time, so his body can completely get back on track. Stopping too soon will just bring it back again.

Also, be prepared for lots of accidents. Since his muscles and nerves are stretched out, he can't tell when he needs to use the toilet, and this is NOT HIS FAULT. We'd send our son to the toilet for ten minutes at a time three times a day for the first month, and the second and third months we did it twice a day. We just hit the four-month mark, and he's finally starting to be able to feel when he needs to go again.

Good luck with this. I know how absolutely frustrating this is. I hope things clear up soon. :)

I was having a similar problem when I was potty training my son. I realized he really didn't have any true consequences to doing the deed because it was cleaned up and taken care of for him by me. This may sound harsh to you and may not be appropriate for your situation, but I ended up having him clean up the mess the next time he did it. I had him take his pants off, get in the tub, clean up himself and then clean his pants. The incident did invoke a lot of crying, he wailed that he didn't want to touch it, but when he said that, I asked him if he thought I wanted to. He, of course, realized that I didn't want to do it either and we talked about how it would be much easier for everyone if he went in the potty. It did take about 3 times of doing this and it was very hard to stick to my guns but I knew he was testing to see if he could still get away with it and I knew I had to be firm and consistent as hard as it was. I realize this sounds very harsh but I honestly felt that was the only thing that would make him understand because we too had tried the stickers and everything else with little results. After the 3rd time, it's almost like it clicked that the end result would always be him cleaning it up (especially after my husband made him clean up too) and he has never done it again and still talks about how he is choosing to poop on the potty. We continued the praise and the stickers telling him that he has made a very good decision for about another month or so, and now it's not an issue anymore.

I don't know if you want to be this drastic, but it did work for us.
M.