feces smearing

[auntp]

I am very concerned about my nephew, he is thirteen years old and has been smearing his feces everywhere around his house and recently did the same at my house, what do I do and why would he do this???

[jdtm]

Depends - a psychiatrist is a medical doctor and therefore able to prescribe medication.  A psychologist is able to diagnose and treat with therapy but not prescribe medication.  In our case, a child psychiatrist diagnosed our child and dealt with the meds; but the psychologist worked out the therapy and intervention tactics.

From your posting you state your son has social anxiety.  As you have found out, your son will not outgrow this anxiety nor will it go away.  But, anxiety can be difficult to treat in teenagers so I would hope you seek additional help as soon as possible.  It appears from your posting that the help you have is not sufficient.  Hope this helps ...

[sycostar]

my son is 9 and has displayed this behavior not at my house, but at his friends house????? He seems very depressed lately about his social anxiety and is very over emotional about small things. He constantly complains about kids picking on him at school, and seems very jealous of my boyfriend of 2 yrs. i would like to think this behavior will disappear, but i don't know how to correct him with out enabling him with that desired attention he craves. He has a psychologist however, i was considering a psychiatrist to evaluate this instead. Which mental health professional should i use and exactly what is the difference?

[pennst8r]

Please tell us more about your nephew. Is he a child with special needs? If so, what? That can be vital to the reason for this behavior, especially in a 13 year old. With certain conditions, this is a known behavior - still not socially acceptable, but you get the picture.

Penn

[margypops]

Something has happened in his life can you get him to open up with gentle questioning, how does he get on with other Family members, how about School ,has he friends. You may get an idea whats going on.Get him to clear his own Mess up but dont say much ,dont feed into the Drama,I think you"ll find once he opend up and you can give him some positive feedback about hisself it'll stop. The alternative is ask a councillor to have a chat with him, is ther a Dad around can do some guy things with him.

[SUGARPLUM344]

Has he been through some sort of trauma?  This is usually a sign of severe emotional disturbance - especially attachment disorders caused by some sort of emotional trauma.