• Replies 7 replies
  • Subscribers 63 subscribers
  • Views 3333 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Toilet issues

george

My 6 year old son will not go to the toilet on his own. Despite encouragement he insists on somebody pulling his trousers down and “aiming” for him. There is no physical reason why he cannot do this. Does anybody else have a similar problem and any suggestions / tips to help make him more independent in this respect?

 

  • Hi george

    As well as all the great suggestions made already you might want to have a look at our article on toilet training. Most of it will be things you've clearly already dealt with but there could be some tips in there that may help.

    http://www.autism.org.uk/living-with-autism/understanding-behaviour/toilet-training.aspx

    I hope you'll find something useful there. Smile

    Sandra

  • Hello my son had issues with toileting but it was more touching and smearing!! Our occupational therapist made him a velcro chart with pix to attach in the right order of doing things with a booklet with his name through it all about the loo and the right things to do. this eventually worked with a sticker chart as a reward. good luck

  • I agree Johnsmum and feel it is important for people to know they aren't the only ones, both my siblings the eldest which is 18 still wear pads.

  • This is the great unmentionable subject in the autism picture. I keep discovering other people with kids with toileting problems but it seems I have to know them for years before they will own up.

    My son couldn't go to school nursery 'cos he was still in nappies at 3 1/2. He was dry at night before he was dry in the day - he just wouldn't interrupt what he was doing to go to the toilet. The soiling problem lasted right up until he was 12, when he went to a CAMHS-run children's residential unit for a whole school year to sort this out. I know mums who still wipe their 12 year old's bottoms, and even one who wipes her 19-year-old's. At nearly 16, this summer, when we went to the US for two weeks, my son just didn't empty his bowels for nearly 2 weeks and was in agony when we finally had to give him laxatives.

    All kudos to the NAS for starting to run training days on this - I went to one, which made me feel less alone, and I hope there will be many more in different parts of the country.

  • My son had the same problems about the toilet. We had daddy and his older brother always going with him and showing him what to do; all to no avail. We tried a ball to aim at though he just took that as being able to throw everything down the toilet.

    We found that letting him take a toy and siting on the toilet was the thing that cracked it for us and 2 weeks after he had started school (he goes to a special school) , he was going all by himself, flushing and washing his hands after so maybe its just a timing issue george and dont be too disheartened.

  • I think that's a brilliant idea AMO.

    George, if you get one with a little bell inside, it would add meaning to the expression 'going for a tinkle'

    But seriously, if you give AMO's idea a trial, with or without the bell, and let us know if you have any success. If not then I'm sure we will come up with some more suggestions to help you through this phase.

    Alternatively you might like to have a chat with another parent on the confidential Parent 2 Parent line.

    Parent 2 Parent info:

     http://www.autism.org.uk/en-gb/our-services/advice-and-information-services/parent-to-parent-line.aspx

     

  • Have you tried one of those brightly coloured balls for cats in the toilet bowl and getting him to see if he can hit it if he aims himself?