How Bedwetting Can Have A Direct Effect With Your Child's Reactions And Emotions

By age six, most children who wet realize that they are in the minority among their peers. By age seven, most have become certain that there are no other children in the world their age who still wet, and the do all the can to protect their secrete. They become masters at hiding the problem from friends and to some degree family.

Young and older children might try to hide their own sheets and pajamas. Children who wet during the day sometimes attempt to for any future accidents, by putting on dark pants and very long T-shirts when they get dressed in the mourning. Some children will flatly deny being wet even when their pant are obviously soaked. They will tell their parents and the doctors, "I don't know why we're doing this treatment. I don't have a problem."

Each child is an individual , and each responds differently to his or her wetting problem. Some appear indifferent, some depressed. All too often, they have just given up hope of getting dry, and may astound you with their seeming acceptance of the condition. To help you recognize your own child's reaction, here a few common responses that children have to wetting.


I Have To Keep It A Secrete

Children and grown-ups alike can be cruel. Whether intending to injure or not, people who make or hurtful comments about a child's wetting problem can do serious damage. Children who feel belittled and humiliated about their wetting problems, by even the slightest hint of disapproval from their parents, siblings, or peers are more likely to feel bad about themselves as persons. Likewise, when other people shun a child because of his wetting problem, the resulting feeling of isolation can have a whole host of other psychological effects.

To avoid being labeled a bedwetter, children keep their condition a secret. Long term wetting may eventually impair a child's self-esteem and social development. Because most people young and old alike are uninformed about the basic causes of bedwetting, they tend to think and talk about the problem as if wetting is the child's fault. Children who take this finger pointing to the heart may feel shamed and different from their peers and siblings, they feel defective or immature.

A child who wets usually feel as though she must be the only child in the world who wets, and she worries that her friends will not like her or will tease her if they found about the wetting problem. Children who wet their pants during the day have an specially difficult time, not only is their problem in pain view for all to see and smell, they are also often subjected to teasing and other forms of cruelty by their classmates and neighbors.


I Have To Lie

To keep their wetting a secret, children will lie why they can't join their peers in social activities. Parents may even encourage a child to make up an excuse, or they may lie themselves in an effort to protect the child. Although their motivation may be reasonable, in trying to protect the child the parents reinforce the idea that wetting is shameful. Well meaning parents may even resort to teaching the child to lie about his wetting, thus sending the message that personal problems must be denied to others. Such secrecy only perpetuates the child's sense of shame, and it convey the idea that one cannot seek support from others when dealing with problems. Children demeaned by their parents may respond by resorting to lying about their wetting and may hide their wet underwear after they have seen how angry or disappointed their parents become over an episode of wetting.


Leave Me Alone

Often times well meaning parents ad family members, in their efforts to help an enuretic child, resort to nagging the child to "Try Harder" to stay dry. Other family members, such as grandparents, may question the child at family get together about how the child is progressing towards dryness. In these situations, children often experience great pressure from the family and, when they have not yet become dry, feel as if they are always disappointing others. Such children may think, "They only thing people care about is whether I'm dry." Such children may resort to avoiding certain family members or lash out in anger, "Leave me alone! Stop bugging me about it!"


I Don't Care

Although some children seem indifferent to their condition, be assure that their wetting effects them very deeply. Most apparently unconcerned children have likely come to believe that nothing can be done for them, so they have given up. If they defensively deny that wetting bothers them, it's because the problem is so painful and humiliating for them. Under such a casual attitude there can hide a scared, ashamed child.


Im Not Going To Do It

Sometimes when children have been unsuccessful at previous attempts to become dry, they become oppositional, thats it, uncooperative and contrary, about trying a new treatment approach or seen a new doctor, or both. Such children lack confidence in anyone's ability to help them with their wetting problem. For some children, having to work on this problem yet another time and having to talk to yet another stranger can be humiliating and dejecting. They come to feel bad about them selves not only because of their wetting problem, but also because of their failure in previous treatment efforts. These children may reject another treatment or another doctor not because they wan to keep wetting but because they are afraid to risk another failure.

If they have been humiliated due to their wetting, some children resist participating in treatment because they fear being blamed again, or they feel it is too embarrassing or painful to discuss. To enlist a child's cooperation and participation in a treatment, parents, health care providers, and others involved must demonstrate their patience, understanding,and support. This involves normalizing the wetting and addressing it in a neutral manner, not in a blaming or destructive way. Children who are oppositional to treatment can often overcome their resistance with more reinforcers.

Under some circumstances, for example, when a child is resistant even to try to comply with the treatment program, we recommend making a privilege contingent on compliance. Therefore, if the child wants to watch a video, she has to agree to wear the urine alarm that night and be cooperative. But we present it in a threatening manner ("If you don't wear your alarm, you're not watching that video!") but in a positive one ("If you want to watch your video tomorrow, you need to wear your alarm when you go to bed tonight").


Im Ashamed Of Myself

The most harmful comments and behaviors can come from the child's own parents, calling their child absent-minded or irresponsible, and then threatening or pushing him when he doesn't control his accidents. (Many parents simply don't realize that their child can't control himself.) People who were belittled for the same problem themselves when they were children may instinctively demean their own child who wets. Parents who use shame can help erode a child's self-esteem, which can result in the child developing behavioral and emotional problems and can undermine the child;s effort to get to dry.


I Know This Wetting Problem Isn't My Fault

Fortunately, many children have supportive families who have accepted their child's wetting problem for what it is, a condition out of their child's direct control. When families don't make a big issue out of wetting, their children may even choose to share their wetting problems with their best friends and their extended family. They also tend to be more enthusiastic about working out ways to join in on sleepovers and other social activities.