Potty Training Problems

[Grandmaaa]

My Grandson uses his poop to finger paint his room. He has done this numerous times. We have tried to talking to him and giving him time out. He will be 4 in July and refuses to poop in the potty. We have tried reward charts, praise, pretend games; you name it. Help!
A concerned Grandma

[Amy1973]

Wow, I have hard of this.  Someone told me the same thing - but it passed.  He might do it to sound like you have tired alot of things.  You might take him to the doctor.  Could be something?  I found when I had a problem and the doctor talked to my son about it - it worked.  Somehow having a doctor talk with the kid about it works sometimes.  Plus, my son had a medical condition ontop of it all that added to the problem.

You might try having him set on the potty every 2 hours and wait for 2 minutes at a time.  This might cause him to go potty in the toliet.  But seeing a doctor may help.

[jac32]

Surely at nearly four he should be on the toilet by now? If the poop goes down the pan he has to say goodbye to it! It's gone and he then has nothing to finger paint with. Sorry if this sounds patronising but seems a simple solution to a messy problem!?

[MomOfTwoGrls]

I feel for you.  Although it will make a good story for the baby book and future girlfriends, it is disgusting.  

My daughter did the same thing, although she is only 18 months old at the time, during nap time she used to do what we called diaper diving.  Where she would during her naps dive into her diaper after she pooped and smear it all over her walls, crib and toys.  

It got to the point after she was doing it for 2 weeks straight, I finally did something about it beside yell and spank.  I made her clean it up.

But also when she was ready to be put down for a nap, I put on a clean diaper, plastic pants over that and then regular pants over that.  She couldn't pull them off to diaper dive.  So that was the end of it.  NO MORE diaper diving.  

She is currently 26 months old and going through potty training.  

[hydrena]

give the child finger paint and let him know this is for  painting poop is for the potty but he will have something to use for all his creative, most paint is washable and he mihgt like the different bright colors, hope this help i work with 4 years and they like finger paint, have something coved in news paper explain the rules stay here and paint then wash hands when done display his work plan art paper will work for his creation.