My son has been at a good Montessori for a month and a half and has reverted back to hated school because worktime is "boring". He got better at it because he started choosing things. He says he had a good day almost everyday after picking him up and the teachers are giving postive feedback about his behavior at worktime too. He is very good at following directions.
He "accidentally pushed" and pooped in his underwear for the 1st time EVER during school. He was too shy to ask for help and it went unnoticed until the smell and trailing evidence on the floor was found. After asking the whole class for the guilty party, my son finally admitted it. He said he didn't want to go to to the bathroom near the other room where some of the other kids were resting and he did not want to be mistaken for wanting to rest.
Is he feeding me a line? Is this normal? Or what?
Not sure what it being a "Montessori" school has to do with the situation....
But he's 4. He's in pre-school. Some 4 year olds have accidents. Kids in school poop their pants. It happens.
Just discuss getting to the bathroom when he needs to go.
Normal. My son didn't use the bathroom all year once because it was located within the classroom.
I think that kids have all sorts of reasons (or they really don't know) why accidents happen. I fully believe a kid might not want to go to the other room if he thought he'd have to sleep. Or not want to stop his play for a potty break.
I would discuss with him what to do in the future. I would also talk to the teacher and enlist his/her help in encouraging your son to use the restroom.
I will also say that my friend's son is 4 and still has occasional accidents. It's not limited to your child or even school. I think that sometimes it happens and you help them move on from it. I also find that sometimes kids need to be TOLD, "We are going to try to use the potty before we go outside." If there are no set potty breaks for the kids, could she remind him before lunch, maybe?
Dear C. -
I had a 'community bathroom phobia' when I went off to college! Prior to that...I was very careful to make sure my 'potty' needs were taken care of at home...For the first WEEK of college...I swear I just could not go...thought I was gonna get impacted...lol
Not to worry...have teacher explain bathroom guidelines...he will be OK I think...I finally was! ;)
Michele/cat
You don't mention, or I missed, how old your son is. Worktime in a Montessori school is all the time. The things the children do are referred to as work, so there's not playtime/worktime. Some kids prefer different activities in Montessori classrooms, and it's the teacher's job to make sure the kid is getting a varied "diet", not just doing the things he or she wants to do all of the time. It's great that he's getting better at choosing his own work. It takes a while for the student to "normalize" into the routine AND for the class itself to normalize.
I'm not a potty expert, but maybe he's not completely ready for autonomy in this area. My own son took FOREVER to be ready to potty completely on his own. The Montessori preschools I know will expect the child to be independent in this area. Someone should have shown him, early on, the toileting routine, so he should know that going potty doesn't indicate he wants to rest. Maybe that wasn't made clear to him.
If he's preschool age it's very normal. I would be a little concerned if they asked the kids about it in front of each other. If he's embarrassed or felt self conscious about it in front of the other kids that might make things worse and make it more likely to happen again. It's hard to know from your description, but you might want to talk to both your son and the teachers about how to handle it if it happens again. He shouldn't feel bad and there should be a plan for him to discreetly ask for help.
