The child with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, FAS, deals with ongoing processing inconsistencies that can affect every aspect of daily living. Recently, parents of FAS children were comparing potty training notes on a yahoo group to which I belong. One parent was sharing her frustration about a six year old, who was occasionally wetting herself at school, and frequently wetting herself at home. Other parents chimed in with similar experiences with their FAS children, including a parent who shared that her eight year old was still having accidents. The whole conversation helped to jog my memory since my FAS daughter is currently 15. Meaning it has been a few years since we dealt with these issues. I remember that my daughter would wet her pants and then not say anything. Occasionally it would go completely unnoticed, so it worked for her. All the children in her pre-primary impaired classroom for three to five year olds were required to keep an extra set of clothes at school. Therefore, we can assume that potty training issues are quite common for this age group of learning impaired children.

Our daughter also struggled with withholding stool and then secretly pooping in her pants once or twice a week. Discipline is not an effective tool when toilet training the FAS or learning disabled child. The use of pull-ups, or other protective clothing, as well as using vinyl mattress covers to protect bedding, can help a frustrated parent to maintain patience through this trying time. Many adoptive parents of infants and toddlers exposed to alcohol before birth are a little unrealistic about what it will be like parenting the older FAS child. Many hopeful adoptive parents believed that their love, and their early interventions will erase the damage done by the alcohol exposure.

Another factor to consider if nighttime wetting is an issue, is bladder size, as well as what age the birth parent quit wetting the bed. This has been found to be a hereditary issue, yet this question is not asked on birth parent profiles. If you have maintained contact with birth family, then you are able to ask, but that is not always the case. While it is more common for boys to wet the bed at night up until the age of eight or 10, girls may go through this as well. It may be the FAS, or it may be bladder size, hereditary, or a combination of issues. Protect your child’s mattress and pillows with vinyl covers, use them on furniture, and auto seats if necessary as well, and drop the issue. Eventually, the child will outgrow wetting or defecating. Making a big issue of it will probably perpetuate the issue.

Another issue to note, stool withholding or encopresis, can be signs of sexual abuse.

During 15 years of fostering children for the state of Michigan, we have helped to parent nearly 100 children. We adopted a daughter who came to us as an almost four year old who is now 15, who has FASD. When she came to us, her diagnosis was cognitively impaired also known as mild mental retardation. Like so many hopeful adoptive parents, we thought it didn’t matter. We thought that with our love and every special service available she could overcome her FAS. In some ways, she has. Today she has an average IQ in the low 90s, and test in the average range for achievement when tests are given verbally. However, life still is not easy for her, or for those of us who live with her. She frequently misunderstands written words making schoolwork 3 to 4 grades lower than her age warrants, a struggle despite an average IQ. She also struggles with writing understandable sentences frequently leaving out words and using incorrect forms of verbs and nouns. We have tried numerous countermeasures over the years; however, she rarely complies with them for more than a day or two, even when they really help her succeed. It is not my intent to make fun of children with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome by this blog. However, sharing experiences helps us keep parenting our FASD children in perspective. Maintaining a lighthearted attitude towards the countless mistakes makes life better for the entire family.

Photo Credit: derfel_ie