My son was diagnosed with ADD combined in the 3^rd grade. Upon being diagnosed he was immediately medicated with Ritalin twice a day, one in the morning and after lunch. He has been a challenge all our life and at school. He has been very inattentive, confrontational, and sometimes very temperamental. The local public schools were no help for him so my wife and I decided to give a private catholic school a try in the first grade. Also, before diagnosis and currently, we are seeing a family counselor for his behavior at home which is tearing our household apart. He has also been seeing a counselor at school. The counseling does not seem to help because my son refuses to open himself up. Any question asked he will respond with “I don’t know” and acts like he doesn’t care. He is always fighting and yelling at me and his brother. He gets along great with his mother.

He is now 10 and his behavior has gotten significantly worse. Recently we have noticed a pattern in his bathroom habits that is borderline disturbing and very confusing for my wife and me. Immediately upon arriving home from school, he uses the bathroom. Sometimes he is in there for 30 minutes at a time. Obviously, parental instincts kicked that something was not right while he is in there. Whenever he has been asked what he was doing he states that he is just using the bathroom. My wife observed this habit for a period of time to try and determine what was going on. She discovered that his hands smell like feces after using the bathroom. They are also unusually wrinkled like one would get after an extended amount of time in the tub. She spoke with his teacher and she has not observed any odd behavior during bathroom breaks.

We both started to notice that the toilet bowl was becoming increasingly and unnaturally dirty. At this time, my wife and I brought the issue up to the counselor. She suggested having him clean all the toilets in the house on a weekly basis. We also placed a brush in the sink for him to properly clean his hands following whatever he was doing. My wife, as of yesterday, informed me that one of her friends walked in on him while in the bathroom and his hand was filthy with feces!!!! We now think he is either playing with his feces during bowel movements or he is speeding up the bowel movement process with his fingers!!! Why is my son engaging in this behavior!?! We have already contacted our counselor and are going in next Monday. My wife and I are extremely worried about our son!

PLEASE HELP US!!!

Welcome to ADDForums, I am not a parent nor have I heard of that type of behavior occurring myself but I hope one of the other parents on this site can help you out. I am sorry I don't have any help for you and welcome to the site, but chances are that is something that he will most likely outgrow. Hang in there.

You mentioned a counsler, does he have a psycharist too? It's good that you are planning on bringing this up to the counsler, maybe they can shed some light on it.

From what I read, I wonder if he doesn't have Asperger's. As odd as it sounds, he could enjoy feel of his feces. It's sensory issues. Some Aspies like deep pressure (one story I read the girl would get beteen the cushons and the couch and have her sister lay on top of the cushons because the feel of the deep pressure was calming). Some hate baths because of the feel of the water, while some hate showers for the same reason. Mine will stuff his pillow, stuffed animails, blankets, etc into his jammies and then go to sleep like that. It dirves me crazy because he's stretching out and ruining his pj's doing that.

I always get the "I don't know" from mine as well. He (like most aspies) have a difficult time relating to people. They don't pick up on non-verbal signals, and that's hard since 90% of comunication is non-verbal. Body language, tone of voice seem to slid right by him. He doesn't get that I'm mad until I blow my top and I'm yelling at the top of my lungs at him. He really seems to view people as other form of object that intersect his universe from time to time.

I hope that helps some. Just hang in there. :)

If your son is very angry, and spending time sticking his fingers (or other things) into his rectum, I would question what the heck is going on too.

This is an awful thought, but do you think he has been assaulted?

This recreation of an "act" [sticking his fingers and possibly other things into his rectum] can be a way of "telling" for children.

Traumatized children often have no "words" for what has happened to them. Memories are stored as "procedural memories" (actions) rather than as "words" and "reports". Stress "freezes up" verbal word creating and retrieving areas of the brain.

If asking him about this gets him very upset or very angry, or he freezes up, or regresses to a younger age's behavior, these are extreme reactions, and might give you a hint.

I learned a lot about this in three areas:

1. My mom: I learned about this sort of "weird looking" behavior because my mom was a Psych Nurse who used to help run a support group for sexually abused kids and their mothers. She also went to court as support for victims.

2. My SO: He does forensic psychiatry (assessment) and has done family court work (often involves assessing child abuse), so I've learned a lot indirectly. A lot of 'crazy acting' people are in ego states where they are "reliving" old dramas and unprocessed events via traumatic re-enactment.

3. My education: I studied with one of the main sex offender researchers in Canada. (His name is William "Bill" Marshall.) he's written a few chapters for textbooks too.

Usually offenders are someone who is very close to the kid, and if there is such a scenario here, the offender might be someone (most likely male; 97% of offenders are male). He may also be a young person himself. It is estimated that 50% of child sexual abusers are under 18. (And they are usually reenacting their OWN unprocessed traumas.)

Anyway, that's the 411 from my neck of the woods.

NB. Art therapy can sometimes help too. Kids can sometimes draw what is upsetting them more than they can "say" it.

PS I hope you can get some support for yourself, eh? This must be so stressful for you, WHATEVER the cause of your child's outrageous behavior is. :S

I'm not gonna write anymore b/c we have had "faker people" post weird stuff on here about these sorts of alarming incidents. It's hard to know who is real and who is not.

Hopefully my info can help everyone.