Peed pants

Alejo is at it again: today he peed on himself while we were having lunch--he liked his food, we were talking and eating normally, it was not a stressful or different lunch in any way... and when he got up I saw that he had soiled the chair. He said nothing about it and if I had not noticed the chair, he would've stayed wet and dirty all day. He had already changed into his kimono to go to judo class, and of course, that got a bit wet because his underpants were totally wet. His father asked him about him having peed, and Alejo lied saying that in school the teacher had done this or that, but when I showed him the seat cushion he had to admit that he had wet his pants at home, not in school.

We made him wear a Pull-Up, and he was a bit flustered and asked if he was going to have to wear it to go to his mom's house. We said: your underpants and your pants are totally wet and dirty: what do you think? He cried a bit, but he always cries when his father reprimands him, so it is hard to know if peeing his pants and being caught and being made to wear diapers causes him a particular distress, or not at all... I am starting to see that it does not distress him much at all--that it is an annoyance that he prefers to put up with, the whole reprimand-diaper thing, instead of actually going to the toilet...

I told him that the Pull-Ups are not to humiliate him or make him feel bad, but because we are literally concerned about him getting rashes, since he does not change or clean himself and simply spends all day with wet, and then dry, urine on the sensitive skin of his private parts... and we are worried about him smelling so bad that the other kids will notice and make fun of him. He sometimes does smell bad enough that at ten feet away from him we know he is walking around in clothing that has dry urine all over it. He is not happy about wearing diapers but he is not unhappy enough to stop his behavior... I have asked him to please think hard about why he does this, so that we can think of a solution, but he simply stays quiet or says that he doesn't know... His father keeps telling him to go to the bathroom when he feels the slightest need to do so--as if Ale were peeing his pants after having held it in so long that he couldn't make it to the bathroom on time. This happened sometimes throughout his 4th and 5th year of age, but the end result would be pants with some urine, underwear with some urine, not totally peed through and through. I know that the boy does not pee on himself because he cannot hold it in: he simply lets go and pees on himself, period. It is not when he is doing something fun, or when he is doing something that he does not like. It is not when he is anxious or angry, or when he is happy or relaxed. There is something, some reason, some physiological thing, I guess, that is behind this behavior... does he like the sensation of letting go and peeing on himself? Could that be it? It is not for attention per se, because he tries to hide his soiled underwear, and he doesn't say anything, letting it dry on him. Is it a cry for help in some way? Maybe--but help in what??

I looked up "my 6-year old pees on himself" in google and saw tens of parents, many of them stepparents, asking similar questions in situations that were similar: kids who had already learned to use the toilet, and who do not wet their beds at night, suddenly start, at age 4, or 5, or 6, or 7, or 8, or 9, even, to we themselves. But nobody had answers, just questions!

Over Christmas vacation he did not pee on himself as much but only because every couple of hours we would have him stop what he was doing and go to the bathroom. He would sometimes say, "I have nothing, I cannot do anything" but most of the time, he actually peed. I guess we will simply have to make ourselves remember that he cannot do this on his own, that, like his homework, he needs to be supervised regarding peeing... but we cannot do anything about school, and sometimes he stinks from having peed his pants in school and spent all day drying it out on him...

So that's it for today--I don't know how to help him, and that drives me crazy!