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Asperger's Syndrome Community
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9 Year Old Boy Won't Use Toilet
by maggie338, Mar 29, 2008 07:54AM
My Asperger son was 5 years old before he was completely potty trained. He is now 9. Since then he's gone back and forth using the toilet. There are long periods of time (months -- sometimes a year) where he will have 'accidents' and hide his underwear and never get on the toilet, and then he'll go back to using the toilet. When he does want to use the toilet he comes up to me and says "I love you" and this is my clue that I need to go in there wtih him and pick him up and set him on it. We've tried breaking him of the need for my help and when we've done that he reverting to soiling in his pants instead. Last summer he ended up in ER because he was impacted and in pain. He is a very intelligent boy, with obsessions, and we are confused about his aversion to this situation! We have consulted doctors, the internet, books, advice of others.... I'm not sure its encompresis because he said he can feel it when its coming out. He is in Karate and doing great! He wants to do leadership in Karate but I have been sort of holding this over his head! I don't even know what the right thing to do is anymore!! I am so frustrated and I don't know how to help him.
How long does it take for him to use the bathroom? Does he view the process of going to the bathroom a big hassle and a disruption? This is something I'd like to know for my own curiosity.
I'm trying to see if what you describe is a variant of what I go through when I am busy with something... I put off eating, sleeping, and using the bathroom until I REALLY need to go, then I'm practically running to the bathroom.
I remember several times as a kid I'd barely have time to sit down on the pot before I started peeing. Sitting down to do #2 was especially boring... I found myself often thinking ahead to what other things I could be doing rather than sitting down waiting for the **** to drop....lol.
When I was outside and away from the house, I didn't want to come in to use the bathroom...so I'd find a place that seemed relatively private and like an animal, just got it done... Thankfully I've grown quite a lot from those days. I make sure to relieve myself in the proper place, but I still feel it is a disruption and my mind wanders in 1000's of directions while I'm sitting atop my throne.
Then again I seem to be chronically constipated most of the time regardless of diet, which makes it hard to know if I will really go when I sit down or if I will have to wait it out...
I wish I knew what to advice. For me, it fell out of favor when I started feeling awkward going anywhere but the toilet. That awkwardness was a good motivator. It no longer felt natural to just relieve myself, outside the toilet, no matter how badly I needed to go.
And just a random side note: One time I felt like OMG I gotta pee, but I was sent to timeout for whatever reason... My parents made it clear you never leave your room during the timeout time (ever.) Rather than break the rule and make an exception, I found a bucket to pee in and waited out my timeout time.
Perhaps if any parents of an autistic child are lurking and reading this, make sure to let your child know it is okay to break the timeout rule and go to the bathroom if they really need it.
We have a tendency to take rules literally and believe they are unbending under any circumstance as children. Although I'm probably contradicting myself because there were rules I deliberately broke... The paradox of being human I guess.
That was one possibility. Here's another. If he is getting older he may be dealing with embarrassment having to go up to you and have him help you make him go potty.
And yet another: He could be like me just get so wrapped up with whatever he is doing that he may have tuned out everything else or "put to the back burner" so to speak.
Oh and another yet: Is there any thing he is adverse to? Possibly an uncomfortable toilet seat? Lack of things to stem on when having to do a BM? For me I found the waiting process annoying. Sometimes the peeing process didn't start right away either. I remember either dad telling me, a book, or someone saying to think of a stream of water as I sit there. I don't know if it helped or not, but at least got my mind active on something beside sitting rather uncomfortably on a toilet seat... I found throughout my childhood imagining I'm driving a stick-shift truck or car (using the toilet plunger as the stick) gave me enough distraction to make the process a little less boring and ease anxiety.
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I can't speak for him. It could be any one of what I mentioned or a completely unrelated thing. That's something you'll need to coax out of him yourself, but in a non confrontational manner.
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As far as giving wrong answers, could you give some more specific examples? What is he like when he does that? Is he excited? Slap happy? (that's how my parents described me... I'd go off on OMG I'm HYPER!!! And everything is so FUNNY!" and the more I tried to stop laughing and the more my parents got grumpy, the funnier it got... I took to trying to bite my lip or my arm in attempt to try to stop the extreme hyper laughing spell and become more serious. Sometimes I'd try to think of a sad thought to counter it.
Usually it would have to work itself out. This could have been something done in timeout or if I could run off into the field across the street (at the time) and find something else to do.
Sometimes just a silly mental image would trigger a silly outbreak... I sometimes used that to my advantage if I was put in a situation and in an uncontrolled crying spell. Sometimes it helped cheer me up and sometimes not.
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On a more serious note, sometimes I blurted out the opposite or something different than what I was trying to say… I would not be so giggly and hyper when that happens. Next time I experience a moment like that, I’ll see if I can put it into words what comes up, whether it is something like “slip of the tongue” or something else.
This is just a thought... If he gives out the wrong answer, maybe discuss with him what he IS talking about. Perhaps he doesn't realize a laptop is different than a book? Then again isn't there a laptop called an ibook? Could he be confused there?
Or maybe what he was reading was talking about laptops (which I doubt, but since I'm recreating this scene in my head, I can't rule out that possiblity.)
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I'm generating this scene in my head:
Your son is reading a book about cars.
You come in, "Hey son, whatcha doing? What are we talking about?"
Your son may be thinking, looks at his book, sees a picture of a car and blurts out, "car."
You may or may not be aware that he is reading a car book. In fact he may have been absorbed in his book, he probably wasn't paying much attention to you. Since he is thinking about cars he may assume you are too. In his mind he was talking about cars.
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It didn't dawn on me that people around me may be thinking of other things than what I was thinking about until probably around age 11 or 12. For a while I just couldn't understand why people didn't have the same enthusiasm about my obession (insects) that I did.
This probably lead to some unusual answers. I wish I could remember my hand raising days. I just know in 4th grade when we got to study insects. My had was constantly in the air. I think I even blurted out some answers freely without waiting for the teacher to call on me. I think in retrospect I must had annoyed that teacher. At one point she said, "Okay anyone but [insert my name] have an answer?" The teacher was trying her best to get the entire class to participate, but I failed to realize that. To me teacher asked a question. I had an answer.
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As far as giving out the wrong answer, on some occasions it was because I only heard part of the question. If someone is saying, "I was out to the park and I saw a beautiful yellow butterfly with black stripes. I wonder what kind of butterfly it is Have you seen one at the park too? Oh by the way how was your date with Fred at the park?" This person isn't looking at me, they are looking at their friend and wanting their friend to talk about an experiance in the park.
I didn't hear that last sentence at all.... I heard, "I wonder what kind of butterfly that is?"
Thinking they honestly wanted to know what kind of butterfly they were talking about I answer, "Tiger swallowtail."
I'm either ignored or given a really wierd look from one or both people engaged in the conversation. First off she wasn't talking to me. She was talking to her friend. She wasn't even asking about butterflies. The real question was to see how her friend's date with Fred went. Likely she expected to hear some jusy answers about if they kissed or not. For someone to blurt out, "Tiger swallowtail" seemed totally out of place. In fact she may have even forgot she asked about a butterfly.
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That's one possability. If that is what is going on with your son, that would be something I can relate to.
For most people facial expressions, etc come naturally, but for the autistic, these have to be learned. For instance if I want to frown I have to choose to frown. After enough practice I can do it more easily. I don't have to put as much thought into it. But if I am in observation mode or jsut most of the time, I don't bother because it may take some of my concentration away. Same with eye contact, etc. It causes anxiety to look into people's eyes, but if I look off to the side I can listen to them better. Sometimes just doing something while talking works (as long as it isn't reading or writing.)
Some people more on the aspergers end can learn to do eye contact better than others. For me it is a bit much. For someone else, they can overcome it. I get a kick (sarcastically speaking) when people think that in order for me to pay attention, I must look at them as close to their eyes. It seems to work the opposite. I do have to find an angle I can look or listen best. Most of the time I'm looking downward. Perhaps that shuts out some of the visual distraction, I don't know. That I need to observe more, but then again I'm trying to listen to the person, so I guess that doesn't really matter, lol.
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Also see if you can encourage him to ask questions if he missed part of the conversation. This is something I have to do often when listening to people. The challenge becomes how much do I ask for repeats, and how much do I just let go. Then I also have to control the mind wander factor... Obviously if I hear any kind of insect mentioned (along with african violets, alcoholism, etc) My mind tends to pick up on that right away.
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Mind wander factor in action:
Someone is talking about a drunk guy that confronted them... Anything related to alcohol I am prone to imagining the character in my story that isrecovering. A scene from my imagination plays. If I don't catch myself I'm too busy watching a movie for those few seconds... My ability to concentrate is a little less. I try to tune out of my mental movie. The conversation has moved on. Suddenly one of the things they say makes my mind think of light sabers...then onto star wars (I watched the series an likely can remember quit bit in great detail) Then from star wars I may be thinking about good/bad force...Gets me thinking about religion. God vs. Devil...Then I may wander and start thinking about how Some Christians view it their calling in life to stread the Word. Then my mind wanders to midieval times when Catholics were crusading... Then I think about the witch trials... Then I start wondering were tey really following God or their own agenda and saying they were called by God... Then I think about Columus and contrast what I learned in history vs a book my 8th grade history teacher read where it portrayed Columus in a more realistic light. (it was aweful!) Then I think back to how the Catholics thought he was being a missonary. I question and wonder, Did they know what he was doing? Could they have been misguided? Then I start wondering what times have I been mislead into things.....................
If you were every going to ask me "penny for your thoughts?" you may as well pay me collect, lol...
I don't know if this is specifically an autistic trait, but it could be... I just know that's one of the things that make paying attention and following conversation a little more difficult for me. If you can imagine, these mind wanders often are some kind of image or movie clip like detail… Some more than others… For me in order to pay attention, It seems to work a little better if I try to concentrate my mental imaging ability to portray what someone is talking about.