Step Two--Fire the Psychologists

So Robin is seeing one psychologist for encoporesis checkups and Batman is seeing another one for behaviour & emotional issues.
Batman's psychologist is charging $200 per hour to play games with him and come up with lists of calming techniques. When I explain that Batman comes up with the list items easily because we practice them at home, and that, even though he understands what to do, he lacks the emotional maturity to do it, so they don't work at present, said psych blinks at me, questions how often I actually work with Batman (daily), then says that it's supported by research. He has nothing else in his repertoire.

So much for magic bullets. I am so sick of "professionals".

So fired.

When I realize that Robin's pychologist is billing $75 dollars for a 15 minute visit, I ask her whether the weekly follow-ups are necessary. No! Apparently, once we had the procedure down, they were never necessary. (This admission was aided, no doubt, by the discovery that our insurance company wasn't going to pony up.)

Since when has "take the money and run" been ethical or acceptable in that profession?

This went down two months ago and I'm still angry about it. Can you tell?

It makes me feel like a moron for even going to them. Apparently, the lesson, "Mother knows best" is a hard one. There's still a tendency to appeal to some authority.

Incidentally, the encoporesis cleared up two weeks after our last appointment.

Being properly supportive....

So, Robin, my younger son with encopresis, invites me into the bathroom for a look at his latest effort. After I'm done admiring it ("Look at all the bubbles!") he proudly informs me that he has "a waggy little penis."

To which I can only reply, "Yes. Yes, you do."

Treatment Guidelines for Primary Nonretentive Encopresis and Stool Toileting Refusal

Yup, my almost five-year old son is still not toilet trained. The title is the title of the article in an issue of American Family Physician I am using as a rough guide to working with him. We've already started our poop diary and will be scheduling trips to the toilet, with accompanying books, throughout the day. I can't see fitting in more than one or two trips past the normal early morning, before bath, and before-we-leave-the-house trips so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Now that we've had his developmental evaluation, and I know this problem is not due to any developmental delay, I can relax a bit and just work with him. Poor kid does fit the profile for ADHD though, and has a poor working memory. I imagine that is contributing in some small way to his issues with this.