Eating feces

My 6-year old son told me tonight, that he sometimes sticks his finger into his anal hole and puts it into his mouth afterwards. Sometimes there were rests of feces on his finger and he said, he puts the finger in his mouth anyway. I smelled something strange in his breath and asked him about it.

I realized this strange smell last week for the first time. I am quite sure, he didn't do this before he came to school. Before this time he even hated to go to the toilet and to clean himself up then.

Other unusual behaviour is, that he still sometimes urinates into the bed at night (perhaps once or twice in a week, the other nights he gets up by himself to go to the toilet or he can wait until the morning. We are not angry with him when this happens, but try to tell him, that sometimes soon he will be able to wake up and go to the toilet every night. Another thing is, that since about a year he keeps pulling out the stuff from inside his nose and eats it ( I don't know the english word for it). He began during a heavy cold he had and he still does it, because it tastes good, as he told me.

Our childrens doctor says, we should simply wait, he supposes both (the urinating at night and the eating of "whatever the word is") should fade out and stop by itself, when we don't talk too much about it and that our son is just a bit late in his development in these things.

Another thing about my son: He is a shy kid and easily frightened (bad food, wasps, spiders, ghosts, bad dreams,loud sounds and so on). He suffers a lot of bad dreams. It took a long time to give up the bottle at night, and during the day he loves drinking his cocoa from the bottle.

As I said before, he is six years old (born in April), has just come to school, he is there now since three weeks. Two boys in his new class bully him, telling him names, run after him, when he is alone, punch him. I told his teacher about this and it seems to get a bit better now.

About our family: He has seen me ill and suffering for quite some time now: I have Multiple Sklerosis, am Diabetic, and I have a serious intervertebral disc degeneration. I am sick at home since nearly two years now, part of this time I was in hospitals or at home in the bed,unable to move. He knows that I've had a lot of pain, tries to help me where he can, while he is too small to realize that he cannot and that my happiness and wellness is not his responsibility.

I am going to call our doctor first thing in the morning, but as I surfed through the web and found your community, I wanted to post my questions and my sorrow here as well, and hope, somebody could help.

[vhc09]

you sound like a good mother. i think your son is normal enough sounding, he isn't trying to hide anything from you and is a caring son.

i only worry about the bullying because i've heard it is real bad in the schools. i would keep on top of that and watch for changes in his behavior. bullying scars people for life, it is real serious stuff. can his father tell him how to stand up for himself?

the stuff in the nose is called "snot" :)

i teach my daughter at home (homeschool). she is in 6th grade now. she has plenty of friends and it is wonderful.

please write back sorry for your health problems.

[Cymoril]

Yes, I was worried about the bullying too. But today I talked to the mother of one of those bullys ("My son? Noooooooo!!!") and we decided to let him and my boy meet in private next week. They live in our street and my son and me will go over there, so the boys can get to know each other a bit, while the mothers can have a coffee and a chat!

It was the idea of my son, by the way... Well, in Kindergarten he was taught in something called "Faustlos" = "fistless" (managing conflicts without using the fists). So he is trained in talking about problems with his friends, realizing, when somebody gets hurt even in his feelings. The other boy have been to another Kindergarten and they behave simply different.

Let's wait and see, what the next week brings.

About the finger licking - I told him that he could get sick from it, which impressed him a lot. He told me he didn't realize it and promised not to do it again.

[vhc09]

Well I hope your meeting with the mother and son goes well. Your son really sounds like a special boy. He sounds sensitive and sensible at the same time. A great combination. I would take any bullying program (like fistless or Faustlos) by the schools with a grain of salt however. I just don't trust the common sense of the public education system anymore. One good source is a radio talk show host called Dr. Laura. She takes questions on her radio program every day of the sort that you have.

Good Luck!