5 Yr Old Pooping Pants

One of my 5 yr old boys poops in his pants everyday and denies it all the time.  He does it at school and home and last night I had 3 pairs of undies to wash out.  I know this is all driven by anxiety.  To make a long story short, when we were on vacation in May, we found out our home exploded and we lost everything.  It started 2 weeks after the explosion (when he was at daycare still), then he did ok in July.  Then kindergarten started and it started up again.  After a while, he did well again.  Then about November, it started up again.  We moved back into our beautiful new house on Dec. 20th, so we assumed it was the change leading up to the move, but it has happened the entire time in our new house already.  My husband thinks he's afraid of the toilets here so he's supposed to let us know when he has to go and we'll go in with him.  I don't think that's it.  I've had school guidance talk to him but I'm skeptical of her.  Apparently after our house exploded, she brought my DD (who was in 1st gr at the time) in and told her not to talk about the explosion because she didn't want her friends to feel sad.  Well her friends' feelings are the LEAST bit of importance to me after what our family went through, and I never knew about this happening until my DD said something about it just last month.  
 
I should note that in the rental house, we noticed he stopped sucking his thumb except at bedtime.  Well in this house, he's doing it mid-day, laying on the LR floor on his back like a baby, legs in the air sucking his thumb.  So he's totally stressed out and regressing to baby stage to help comfort him.  What our your thoughts/suggestions?   

 

A couple more items to add...last night I made him scrub his undies, so that's his responsibility now and he hates doing it.  Also, throughout this, we have instilled rewards and he's done well with those, except when we stop.  At some point poopin' in the toilet shouldn't be a reward!  But again we've discussed with him that for each day he goes in the toilet, he gets 10 min of ipad time (we're anti-technology people, so this is a huge reward in our house), after 5 times he gets a racetrack built, and also he gets to sleep with mom in his bed for one night.   :silly:   
 
In our new house, we were able to build an extra bedroom so this is the first time the boys have their own room.  That has gone EXTREMELY well and the boys love their bedrooms, so there's no anxiety about being separated at bedtime.  In fact, this boy was looking forward to it for quite some time.  

 

I would have to agree with you that it could be anxiety.  You've had a lot of changes that have happened, I am so sorry about your house!  I think the rewards you have implemented are a good idea.  I hope they will be his currency to help him go in the potty.
I have a just turned 6 year old who deals with severe social anxiety and she has been in therapy for 2 years now.  And when she is nervous she will revert to baby talk and we have to remind her to use her big girl voice, which she does.  So, I would suggest, if you can to ask him what things does he worry about.  I know it is very hard to get that info out of a 5 year old, my daughter had a hard time with identifying her feelings and concerns.  I would also recommend discussing it with your pediatrician and see if he/she would recommend your son for therapy to help him deal with the anxiety.
It's been slow progress for my daughter, but I can tell you, therapy has made a difference for her.  Just the fact that she can hold a conversation with her grandmother on the phone is a wonderful thing to see.  
:hug:

 

Sounds definitely like you are working in the right direction. Sounds stressful for all involved. I don't have much to add other than hugs.

 

Have you spoken to your pedi about it? It sounds like your son could benefit from seeing a developmental psychologist to deal with his anxiety. Also, does your school have a school psychologist on staff, not just a guidance counselor? If so I would talk to him/her as well. :hug: and glad you are back in a new home after such a traumatic event.

 

Those sound like major issues setting in anxiety, I mean your house exploded. I have no idea how it happened and I am happy you are all safe but that is quite a bit for anyone to take in at once, especially a child. I know similar things that happen with girls too (but it is usally #1, not two).

 

Our house exploded from a simple lightning strike.  Lightning struck at 8:28am (confirmed by the National Weather Service), and the evidence shows that electrical current from the lightning punctured holes in the gas line running between the propane tank and the house.  Gas leaked into the house for 3 1/2 hrs before it exploded...the fire investigator is assuming the sump pump kicked in to spark the whole thing.  So my DH and I have been stressed trying to build a house while both of us work, have 3 kids busy with school, activities, etc. and also trying to repurchase everything we once owned and most importantly, following insurance's "guidelines" with the purchases.  All of that insurance documentation has been a full-time job itself.  We've taken a break from purchasing the "first phase" of items (necessities like pillows, garbage cans, shower curtain rods, bedding, linens, clothes, etc.) and need to start up the "second phase" of purchasing, which are things we really don't need at this moment but will at some point, like a card table and chairs, business suits (I should start looking professional again at work), home decor, the beloved Toy Story movies, etc. 
 
But back to the gas line...for anyone that has a home built after 1990 and has gas, chances are you have corrugated stainless steel tubing (CSST).  It's probably a yellow flexible piping.  It could be that hasn't been installed properly...it MUST be grounded and bonded otherwise your home is not protected in a lightning strike.  Your home could start on fire or have a gas leak.  From what I understand, if ours was properly grounded/bonded, at best my electrical would have fried which would be much easier to deal with.  And I'm not saying anyone was at fault, my understanding is building code has changed to reflect this, and no one went back and communicated it (that we're aware of).  So if you google CSST, you can learn more about it and there are quite a few lawsuits out there over it.  At this point we don't plan to sue, but we want to get word out to let people know their homes may not be safe.  Our home was completely destroyed, it knocked the neighbor's home off it's foundation and damaged 5 others.  We are VERY thankful that no one was injured and we know the 1st responders would have never recovered our bodies had we been home due to the force of the blast.  But we don't want anyone else to have to experience what we have.  We plan to contact our elected officials and see if any laws about changes in gas code can be changed, but at this point we're exhausted and need to go through emotional healing...and submit more receipts to insurance.  

 

I am so sorry for all that you have gone through! I have also had major house damage that induced a lot of stress, and change. Fortunately our kids were too young to realize what was going on at the time, but I think if it happened now they'd be very distressed. Anxiety is unfortunately the brain's very neat coping mechanism for dealing with that kind of uncertainty. Like Nancy suggested, I would also seek counseling and keep at it with the structured rewards.
 
I hope in all this you find time to heal and undo some of the stress on yourself too. It takes it's toll, for sure. So very glad all of you are safe and in a new home.

 

I'm so sorry about your house! My son had the same issue, we went to see a therapist, and it really helped.

 

Thank you!  We're officially going to therapy.  Insurance has approved 3 sessions for him - we'll see what happens after 3.  Maybe I can get more approved if needed.  He went in the toilet yesterday and got his 10 minutes on the Ipad and I made a big to-do of exclaiming "what on earth stinks in here??!?" because he thinks it's funny when he makes a big stink in the toilet.  I thought since we played it up pretty well yesterday that today would be ok, but he messed his pants 3 times.  2 times he had to scrub and the 3rd I just threw the undies out.  He lost a pair of his Justice League undies - didn't phase him.