10 year old still peeing her pants?!?

[bbray05]

My daughter is 10 years old and is still peeing in her pants. She is a very smart and stubborn little girl. She does this in "spells" or "episodes"; she will go a little while with very few accidents (maybe 1-2 a week) to just out right peeing on herself multiple times a day.
Her background: she was adopted at age of 2, she has a biological younger sister (7yrs) and 3 "step" brothers (8, 7, & 3). She was day potty trained completely at age of 4, night time trained around 6 yrs. She does have ADHD, which the doctors have told me that night time accidents will occur as a side effect to ADHD. So we are in understanding to these occurrences and do not bother with mentioning. When she was 8 we did have a test run ( I can not remember what it was called) but they did an ultrasound on her bladder, kidney and tubes. They said that everything looked normal except that she didn't want to completely drain her bladder. They said that they only problem they seen was that she would just have to go to the bathroom more often because she doesn't empty her bladder. She didn't have an infection either, they checked that before they ran the ultrasound.
When she is having these "episodes" she says she doesn't hurt anywhere. She has told the counselor that she just didn't want to go the bathroom because she is busy doing other things. Or she finds some way under the sun to blame me for it. We have done what the doctor has suggested: making her go to the bathroom every hour or while she sits on the potty making her hold it as long as she could before actually peeing. As a deterrent we have tried everything that we (including the counselor) can think of. We have been supportive and encouraging. We have done the rewards thing muliple times, where if she can go for so long without doing it she will get a surprise. But it has become a never ending cycle that we had to stop because some of our other children started doing it just for the surprise. We have done the embarrassing thing: making her wear her clothes so everyone can smell her, putting her in diapers with and without covering it up. She just started using the diapers like she was 2 again and has even asked for them.  She has been washing her own laundry for over a year. We have also done other punishments as well, like time-outs etc. There is one we have not tried due to the fact we have so many other kids, which is having her go without bottoms. This is also how we potty trained our 2 youngest least of which is 3 yrs. We have talked so much that she starts toning us out before we even finish the first sentence. We are at complete lose and don't know where, what else to do. She is frustrated with us and we are definitely frustrated with the situation. Why is she doing this? and how do we correct it?

[drtarvy]

I hate to break it to you but it sounds like your child is growing into urolagnia. It's pretty common. You're going to have to have a talk about when and where it's appropriate to indulge, and when it most definitely is not.

[Mrs_teddy_bear]

I would suggest then if you can when she pees her pants right before you leave to go to dinner that someone stay home with her and she misses out. Same for trips to the park, if she is choosing not to use the bathroom then she shouldn't be allowed to do activities that big kids get to do. Also, if she pees her pants and both you and your husband are there that one of you takes her home and come back for the others when they are done with their time at the park. Explain to her that it isn't fair that her siblings are missing out because she chooses to behave like this and they are being punished. You might want to talk to have a family meeting and let the other kids politely vent their frustration about being punished for something they didn't do (I sugget talking to them before they vent to her about it). I hope she grows out of this soon for her sake and the sake of your family.

[bbray05]

She doesn't do it as often when she is staying over with someone else, or they just do not realize that she has done it. We have asked her so so many times why she is doing it. All she will tell us is that she doesn't know, or the bathroom is too far away. Even though we have 2 bathrooms in our house and all she would have to do is walk at the most is 5 ft to get to the first one. The closest "realistic" answer we have gotten from her is what she told the counselor that she didn't want to stop what she is doing to go to the bathroom. It has gotten to the point where it is effecting the whole family now. When we are out in town at the playground and she does it and we plan to go out to eat; we can't because she smells so we have to go back home. The rest of our kids is feeling like they are being punished as well because we can't do the things we set out to do because she pees in her pants.

[Mrs_teddy_bear]

Does she do things like go to sleepovers? If this is a choice that she makes in not using the bathroom you might need to explain that this isn't just a problem at home. This is a problem that will bother her socially as well. How would she feel if she spent the night at a friend's house and peed her pants? Or out with friends in a diaper? She may not be aware of it yet but it will soon start to bother her. If this is a thing she does to get attention then you all need to sit down and get her to understand that peeing her pants is not the right way to go about it. You need to ask her straight forward why she pees her pants and work from there.