Encopresis is the medical term for children that soil their pants when they should be potty-trained, usually after the age of 4. This condition perplexes virtually all professionals trained to assess and work with children and including paediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists and others. There appear to be two types of encopresis:

  • Retentivewhere the child refuses to go to the toilet and is associated with constipation. 
  • Intentional – where the child soils his underwear, in other words, the repeated passing of faeces in inappropriate spaces. 

If the child has no medical problems in this regard means that both of these inappropriate actions is a choice.  

In the above cases, parents become very anxious and tend to focus a great deal of attention on the child. 

This usually exacerbates the problem. It seems that this problem perplexes all professionals involved with these children. In the majority of cases the problem continues unabated. 

Interestingly experts do not understand the cause of this annoying disorder. If the child has no medical problem, then from my perspective encopresis is a choice. In other words, a healthy child will know when he wants to poo, his body tells him. 

Unfortunately, a great deal of anxiety is generated among the parents as well as the child. This anxiety exacerbates the problem and the child becomes more anxious as the parents tend to lose their ability to stay calm and deal with the problem in a constructive manner. 

If the child has no medical problems will mean that he is making a choice. The mechanisms within a child’s body will alert him to the fact that he needs to poo but for some perplexing reason, he will then poo in his pants.

Encopresis: Parent and child relationships

One of the key requirements in a relationship of trust between a parent and child is that the child needs to trust that the parent is able to deal with all issues concerning him, in a calm and constructive manner. How is a parent able to stay calm when confronted with a soiling problem? 

A key tenet of the SCPP is to enable and help the parent deal with any situation in a calm manner. I have had overwhelming success in resolving a soiling problem. I advise parents that what they need to do is to ensure that their child owns this problem. 

This is done by the parents calmly talking to the child and explaining to him that from now on they are not going to be upset or react when their child soils his clothes.

SCPP and overcoming Encopresis

Unfortunately, I cannot divulge the secret to the overwhelming success that I’ve had in helping parents deal with this situation.

It seems that research has not been able to get to the root cause of this problem. However, I had a successful case a little while ago with a young girl 11 years old who had been soiling her underwear both at home and school and who had never used the toilet consistently.

After implementing the structures of the SCPP within two days this 11-year-old began using the toilet and stopped soiling her underwear!

The mom was elated and so was the child and she said something to her mom that revealed more than any research that I had done in this regard.

She turned to her mom and said ‘Mom, I’m so pleased that I’ve stopped pooing in my pants. Quite an amazing statement and I came to the conclusion that the parent’s reaction to the child’s encopresis triggered something in the child which caused her to soil her underwear.

The SCPP equips parents with the skills, insight and understanding plus the tools to ensure that the child senses no anxiety from them. 

The problem is usually resolved within a day or two but if not, the parents need to stay consistent and follow through with all the tools that they’ve been given by the SCPP.