This is the true story of James.
James was an ordinary boy who lived in an ordinary
house with an ordinary mother and father and an ordinary sister.
James was usually a happy child.
But James did one thing that he didn’t want other
children to know about.
James often pooed his pants.
Our story starts when James was 3 years old.
James still wore nappies. Nappies are also
called diapers.
James’s mother was trying to potty train him.
James didn’t want to stop playing to use the potty.
When he was 3 and a half, James stopped wearing
nappies.
He was now potty trained.
He did all his pees in the toilet. He didn’t want
to wet his big boy pants.
But James didn’t always poo in the toilet.
Sometimes he didn’t want to stop playing.
What James was doing is called withholding.
He often withheld his poo when he didn’t want to stop what he was doing.
But James was wrong.
He couldn’t make his poos disappear.
His poos had to go somewhere. If James didn’t
do his poos in the toilet they would go somewhere else.
Where do you think James’s poos went?
Yes, that’s right, they went in his pants.
James often pooed himself and made a mess in his underwear. This is called having an accident.
James couldn’t understand why he kept having
accidents. He didn’t do it on purpose. He didn’t even feel himself
pooing in his pants.
Often James had accidents a long time after he had
withheld his poo. He thought he had made his poo go away. He
couldn’t work out why his underwear was messy.
When James pooed himself his mother had to change
his pants.
James’s mother loved James more than anything else
in the world.
But washing his pooey bottom was a yucky job for
her.
She wanted him to always poo in the toilet.
James always said he was sorry when he pooed his
pants. But he couldn’t explain why he kept doing it. He just didn’t
know why he couldn’t keep his underwear clean.
James’s mother and father thought James was being
really naughty. They thought he was pooing his pants on purpose.
James really wanted to stop having accidents but he
didn’t know how to do it. He still thought that withholding made his poo
disappear.
Sometimes he had accidents when he was playing with
other children. His friends wondered why he smelled of poo. They sometimes guessed that James had pooed his pants.
In the end, James worked out the reason why he had so
many accidents.
But James found it hard to stop withholding his
poo. It had become a habit.
When something is a habit it is hard to stop
doing it.
Often James withheld his poo without even thinking
about it.
Sometimes he didn’t even know that he had to do a
poo. His brain didn’t always tell him to go to the toilet.
He felt sad everytime he knew that he had pooed his
pants.
When he was at school, James wouldn’t use the boys
toilets when he needed a poo.
James also wouldn’t poo in public toilets when his
mother and father took him on trips. Public toilets are also called
restrooms.
He really didn’t like the idea of pulling down his
pants and putting his bottom on strange toilet seats.
Instead he always withheld his poo on trips.
He did it without even thinking about it.
Sometimes he had an accident and his mother had to
find somewhere to change him. Both James and his mother found this
embarrassing.
Other times he had an accident after he got home
again.
When James pooed his pants he never told
anyone. Instead he just carried on playing.
He hated the moment when he knew that he’d had an
accident. He knew his mother would probably scold him. He also felt
ashamed. He felt he had let his mother and father down by not going to
the toilet.
But James should have told someone that he’d had an
accident.
Staying in messy underwear was bad for his health
and made it harder to clean him up.
It also made it more likely that other children
would smell what he’d done.
After a while, his mother would notice that he was
smelly and look in his pants to see if he had pooed in them.
Now James was starting to feel really
sad that he still had toilet problems.
As he got older, his accidents were becoming more
embarrassing.
He thought he was the only school aged child in the
whole world who still pooed his pants. He felt really alone with his
problem. He could not talk about it to anyone else.
He decided that he really must always try to use
the toilet when he needed a poo.
He tried really hard. He still forgot
sometimes and withheld, but most of the time he went to the toilet.
James still had a few accidents. He still
disliked public toilets. He tried to use them but withheld sometimes.
When he now had accidents, it was usually on days
out.
When he was 11, James pooed himself for the last
time. It was a really embarrassing accident. He had to walk around
in messy underwear for an hour. There were lots of people around who
could smell him and guessed that he had pooed his pants.
James decided he would never avoid using public
toilets again.
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