6.5 y/o daughter pees pants on purpose every day at school

[Stepmomtobe]

My stepdaughter-to-be is 6.5 and very sharp, advanced in school, active, and playful. She pretty much potty trained herself (by choice) at 2.5 or so because older brother was potty training and she is pretty competitive with him (he is not competitive at all). Since then she reverts several times a year to peeing in her pants on purpose daily. She never wet the bed until age 5, when her brother had a nighttime accident and she did it every day for weeks afterwards. When she loses privileges for daytime wetting and cuts it out, the nighttime wetting stops too. She lies and flushes her underwear down the toilet to hide evidence. She has chosen to squat and pee on the floor in the grocery store rather than go to the restroom. She makes excuses for not asking to go to the restroom and blames others repeatedly, but eventually always admits to trying to pee a little bit in her pants to avoid stopping what she is doing. She insists peeing in her pants is ok as long as she doesn't completely soak her clothing, and pretends EVERY time that we have never told her otherwise. Judging from the smell of her she is doing this daily whenever we are not there to watch carefully (school, grandma's house, play dates). Of course she has many accidents at school and we are sending her to the first grade in a pull-up out of fear she will cause major plumbing issues there by flushing her underwear too many times. She is happy to wear a pull-up and pees at will when she has one on. She has been fully evaluated and aside from the occasional UTI (probably due to sitting in pee pants in my opinion) has a perfectly functional urinary tract. We have tried to address emptying completely when pottying but still suspect she goes only enough to make herself more comfortable when on the toilet. Every visit to the bathroom is a mad dash after long stretches of pee-pee-dancing and denying she has to go.

She has a complicated biological mother situation and I wouldn't be surprised if it all had something to do with feeling abandoned. When we attempt to reason with her, talk about it, get serious, get her to talk, etc she stares intently (quietly pissed off)  and stonewalls us. Every other time she is an open book and a happy and extremely hammy kid.

Her father and I are BEYOND frustrated and saw a counselor for a while to get a referral for the right counselor for her (and preserve our sanity) but have yet to be referred to one for her.

Has ANYONE out there been in our shoes? We worry she will get better with practice and pee her pants all the way through high-school at this rate. Any insight is appreciated.

[RockRose]

I agree it's probably the "complicated mother issues" that is the cause.  Abandonment by their mothers nearly kills some kids, although some handle it a little better and some hide it a little better.  I think you need to focus counseling on her mother abandoning her,  and my guess is the peeing will resolve itself.  When kids are frustrated and angry they stick their thumbs in caregiver's eyes,  and this is one very effective way to do it.  

[specialmom]

So, why do you assume it is on purpose?  My second son had an issue with wetting at around the same age but during first grade both with daytime wetting and night time wetting.  I took him to the doctor about it and she told me that this is a common stress response for kids.  My son had never been in all day school before and was stressed and over tired.  He also had meltdowns a bit easier during that time frame.  We gave him extra TLC and a little earlier bed time and it resolved.  

That your step daughter also has a complicated situation with her bio parent and shifts from place to place, it would make sense she is stressed.  I would say punishing is not the right way to handle this as that is humiliating.  Insult on injury.  Deep breathing and understanding that something more has to be going on that a child trying to tick you off by urinating.  I would agree that this little girl needs counseling but also treating this as not a source of frustration on your part but concern to help her.

And I get it.  One of my kids had a significant issue getting through the night time without wetting.  He was in second grade before he did----  and statistics say that up to 12 percent of kids wet at night until age 9.  The statistic goes down each year after but some kids wet at night until age 15!  This is because they are sound sleepers and the signal to get up and go isn't enough to wake them.  My friends son did not get out of under jams at night until 4th grade---  it was an ordeal.  This happens to all sorts of kids.  My son has sensory issues that had this issue but her son has nothing like that.  But I remember the frustration and sadness as my son was still wetting at night.  The hassle of clean up, etc.  It's a pain.  But he could not help it.  And I am his safe place---  I'm not going to compound the issue by making him feel terrible about it.  

Anyway, I hope it gets better.  And really soon.

[Sandman2]

"occasional UTI"  UTI's can be quite painful.  Kids will remember that and dread the next occurrence and that will change their potty habits.   And if you have not had her tested for a UTI lately, its time to do so. Its a very simple test.  In fact you can get the sample at home and take it to the docs.  There are reasons why a child will avoid the toilet and a UTI is definitely one of them.
  
One of the other reasons (speaking as a retired elementary school principal) is that the bathrooms at school can be a very scary thing to little kids.  Especially, if the teacher will not let them go during classtime and they have to go during recess or lunch when there are a million kids in there.  I would make sure the teacher is aware of the problem and lets her go when needed.
  
And, I agree with Specialmom.  She needs your help...not punishment.   There is something going on...if you can figure out what that is, I think the problem will end.

[Stepmomtobe]

For a long time she would choose a chair, bed, toy, rug etc. to sit on like a toilet and completely empty her bladder on it. But after getting caught about 100 times at some point she must have switched to this new strategy of going a little at a time, waiting for it to dry, doing it again. She also goes months sometimes without any issues (from what we can tell)