SOILING AT SCHOOL

Children who are at school and who soil themselves frequently are almost certain to have accidents in the classroom.  For most kids with encopresis, and their parents, this is likely to be one of the most stressful aspects of the condition.  No child past nursery age wants to poo their pants in front of their peers, particularly not on a repeated basis, and be awarded nicknames such as ‘class baby’ or ‘stinky kid.’  Yet this can be the reality for some of the thousands of children who suffer from soiling problems.

Soiling can lead to a child being teased
or isolated at school, even when she is clean. (c)

Schools can vary a great deal in how they deal with pupils who soil.  The best schools employ staff who are willing to change young children out of soiled pants, provide private toilet facilities, devise a signal for a child to give if they need to leave the classroom quickly and work with parents to maintain a child’s dignity and assist them with their continence issues.  At the other end of the spectrum are schools who force parents to leave their place of work and come into school to change their child, refuse to allow children access to the toilet during lessons, blame parents for not potty training their child properly and even suspend pupils for having accidents.

I was amazingly lucky in that soiling caused me very few problems at infant school, even though I was having a lot of accidents elsewhere at the time.  While I sometimes went home in slightly (for me!) dirty pants, I only ever had one major accident at school.  Was this because I was more likely to use the toilets at school than at home?  Not a bit of it!  I can’t recall a single occasion when I opened my bowel in the toilet at infant school, I would simply withhold my poo while sitting in my seat and then carry on working.  In fact, as I had a relatively strong bladder for a child and went home at lunchtimes, I rarely used the school toilets at all. 

I hardly ever visited the school toilets
during my years at infant school, 
and never once sat on one to do a poo. (c)

My one major accident actually occurred on a field trip to an outdoor activities centre when I was 7 and soon to leave infant school.  My mother had told me beforehand ‘make sure you go to the toilet if you need to,’ but I did not feel the need do so.  However, towards the end of the visit, I realised that I had pooed myself.  And then I did what I always did in such circumstances, I carried on what I was doing as if nothing had happened, although I did try to avoid getting too close to my classmates or the teachers.  Despite this precaution I still expected the smell to give me away.

But I was again remarkably lucky: no-one discovered that I’d had an accident.  Nobody, child or adult, remarked on the odour I was carrying around with me, either during the remainder of our time at the centre or on the coach back to the school where our parents were waiting for us.  With her well-trained nose, however, my mother knew straight away when I got off the coach that I had soiled my pants.  I told her that there were no toilets at the centre.  Not surprisingly, she didn’t believe me.  Walking home with a friend of my mother and her daughter, my mother tried to explain the fact that I smelt of poo by telling her friend that I didn’t wipe my bottom properly.  It was probably no more convincing than my own lie.

If my accident had been discovered then I would have received a stern response.  My teacher was rather strict and was unsympathetic when it came to her pupils having toilet accidents.  The previous Christmas one girl, whom I shall call Melanie, wet her pants during a rehearsal for the school nativity play.  The whole class were sat together back in the classroom when the puddle on the stage was discovered.  ‘Melanie, have you wet yourself?’ called out our teacher as soon as she entered the room.  When the girl said ‘no’, our teacher demanded, ‘Let me feel your pants.’

Aged 6, I withheld my poo at infant
school but avoided soiling myself
in the classroom.

While the rest of the class watched transfixed, poor Melanie had to clamber over us all and stand at the front where our teacher put her hand up the 6 year old’s skirt and felt her underwear.  ‘You have!’ she exclaimed, before sending Melanie off to find the caretaker and tell him what she’d done.  ‘Filthy creature,’ our teacher added for good measure as the girl left the room.

Even today, the thought of my Year 2 teacher calling out, ‘James, have you pooed yourself?’, before checking my pants in front of the whole class and declaring them to be messy fills me with horror.

Why did I only have one accident at school despite my reluctance to park my bottom on school toilets?  I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that subconsciously my body knew that accidents in the classroom would be far more embarrassing for me than the ones I had at home and made extra effort to ensure they didn’t happen.  Whatever the reason, I’m very thankful to have largely avoided the humiliation of soiling at school.  As I stated in my earlier post, How I Stopped Soiling My Pants, at junior school I found the courage to use the school toilets when I needed a poo.

Sadly, many other children are not so lucky when it comes to avoiding soiling at school.  Dimity Telfer's worst experience of soiling herself happened at her school when she was 13, which she describes in her blog post: My Worst Day With Encopresis.