Your bedwetting stories: girls
The Big Secret and School Camp
My daughter is now 10 years old and still wetting the bed. She has never been ‘dry’ so the doctors call this primary enuresis. We’ve tried alarms and medication but it really hasn’t helped much, plus I’m reluctant to let her use medications on a regular basis.
We have set up a diary for her to write about her troubles. This was suggested to me when I went through my separation with my husband and it really does help. Where you can lie in bed all night worrying about something, when you put it down on paper you can look at it for what it is and usually realise it’s not that big a deal after all. So this is what we do. It doesn’t always relate to bedwetting but about all areas of her life that are worrying her.
A few months ago she was getting ready to go on school camp and was very concerned that her friends (and her enemies) would find out about her bedwetting. It was three nights so she knew it was going to take some planning to keep her secret hidden. She wrote down all of the things that she was worrying might happen. It was very hard to read as a parent as it makes you realise that theirs fears may actually be based on children behaving that way. It’s hard to imagine that kids could be so cruel but I think anything is possible today. We talked about all of the concerns and she decided that we should tell one of the teachers so that she could have someone to turn to if things went wrong. I called the school and made an appointment with a teacher that we had always gotten along well with. It was the best move we ever made. Mres ‘X’ told me that she had also wet the bed when she was a girl until she turned 8 and that she was happy to share this information with my daughter. All of a sudden my daughter had a role model to look up to. Mrs ‘X’ was one of the best and nicest people you could meet and she took her under her wing.
School camp came and went. With support from Mrs ‘X’, very careful planning and strategically placed dry nites in the bottom of sleeping bags, in toiletry bags, plastic bags and lots of lolly bags to help disguise any crackling of plastic etc it was a success. The secret was safe.
We sat down a few days later and went through the worry list in the diary. As is turned out she didn’t have to face any of them at all.
I guess one thing I have learned is that “the Secret” doesn’t have to be that big. There are people that you can share it with and they don’t think badly of you. Now I can take that one out of my own worry list. See, the diary for writing your troubles really does put things into perspective. I highly recommend it.
Good luck and best wishes for how ever you handle this phase in your child’s life.
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