S/o bathroom- Boys and aim in the bathroom

[Katy]

I can’t believe someone who’s successfully potty trained so many kids has to ask this question, but do you have any tips for helping boys aim better? 

We had some kids over recently who needed both bandaids and period products in a couple of days so I found little white plastic tubs at Walmart and ordered first aid kit stickers and shark stickers from Amazon. I made little kits with supplies for each category for every bathroom. I thought they were cute and helpful. I also ordered shelves for each bathroom to hold the kits above but in reach of the toilet for a teen, but I haven’t gotten around to hanging them yet, they were just stacked on the back of the toilet. 

Well surprise surprise I just went into the boys bathroom and found not only did someone pee up on the bottom of the raised toilet seat, they peed all over the kits with enough volume to ruin the contents. I’m pretty irritated. Other than making the culprit (who I saw leaving the bathroom) clean it up, any tips for making him pay more attention?

[Wheres Toto]

That doesn't sound like an accident.   Normal methods for teaching boys to aim won't help if they are going to be little shits.  

[Melissa in Australia]

I have heard of having something floating on the toilet to aim at, like a ping pong ball. But have always been afraid to try it thinking it would somehow block the  pipes

[Lecka]

Can you make them sit?  

[Lecka]

Might they do better to stand on a stool?  

[wintermom]

Ooh, stacking shelving near a toilet was a risk. Sorry it failed. I have 3 boys, and they have had their own bathroom for years. Dd, dh and I rarely go in there. It's scary. My boys are 17, 19 and 21 now, and I'm still scared to venture into the boys' bathroom. There is shaving stubble in the sink, towels on the ground and other weird stuff. I have taught them all how to clearn, but I'm not their maid. 

I think your immediate issue isn't so much about how to aim a urine flow, rather how to manage your expectations. You expected strangers in your house to not mess up your items. They did for whatever reason. Time to move on. You can't teach the world's teen boys how to stop being messy. Put your nice stuff far away from the toilet, would be my suggestion.

[Katy]

1 hour ago, Lecka said:

Can you make them sit?  

I can say it’s the rule, but I don’t typically follow them to the bathroom once they learn to wipe. 

[Lecka]

Maybe more encouraging it as an option.  
 

 

[Drama Llama]

Is the kid who peed yours or a guest?

If it’s a little kid I vote for trying to sink cheerios.  I do not vote for fruit loops because some people think they look delicious floating in there and want to retrieve them arguing the water is “still clean”.  Ask me how I know.

If it’s a bigger kid, I vote for checking each time they leave the bathroom for a while and if there are sprinkles of tinkle they clean the whole bathroom.  They can sit.  They can aim.  They can destroy the evidence (with cleaning supplies). Those are their options.

[City Mouse]

How old are the boys? If they are older that about 4 and have been standing to pee for a full year, then I would make them clean it up. Once they realize they have to clean the mess, they may be less likely to make the mess.

[Katy]

My kid, yes older than 4. Probably distracted not willfully bad, based on the fact it’s happened before recently and I walked in to put towels away (to be fair he left the door open) and found him aim up when he was laughing at something a brother said from another room. I have made him clean it up, his dad has made him clean it up. It’s his 4th offense in about 2 months. 

[Grace Hopper]

1 hour ago, Melissa in Australia said:

I have heard of having something floating on the toilet to aim at, like a ping pong ball. But have always been afraid to try it thinking it would somehow block the  pipes

Cheerios. 
 

Helping them learn to not wait til the last minute helps. When my guys were younger they didn’t want to stop playing til they absolutely had to, which could result in control issues. 

[HomeAgain]

We don't encourage standing if there's a toilet.  And the child that pees everywhere gets to clean it.  It's usually a decent deterrent once they realize they're cleaning up a lot more often than they like.

[Scarlett]

I am pretty sure one of our boys did not stop making a mess until he was about 17. 

[Clarita]

55 minutes ago, BandH said:

If it’s a little kid I vote for trying to sink cheerios.  I do not vote for fruit loops because some people think they look delicious floating in there and want to retrieve them arguing the water is “still clean”.  Ask me how I know.

I make my kid clean it up, but I love the fruit loops advice. 

[DawnM]

3 hours ago, Katy said:

I can’t believe someone who’s successfully potty trained so many kids has to ask this question, but do you have any tips for helping boys aim better? 

We had some kids over recently who needed both bandaids and period products in a couple of days so I found little white plastic tubs at Walmart and ordered first aid kit stickers and shark stickers from Amazon. I made little kits with supplies for each category for every bathroom. I thought they were cute and helpful. I also ordered shelves for each bathroom to hold the kits above but in reach of the toilet for a teen, but I haven’t gotten around to hanging them yet, they were just stacked on the back of the toilet. 

Well surprise surprise I just went into the boys bathroom and found not only did someone pee up on the bottom of the raised toilet seat, they peed all over the kits with enough volume to ruin the contents. I’m pretty irritated. Other than making the culprit (who I saw leaving the bathroom) clean it up, any tips for making him pay more attention?

Is this a foster situation?

My friend's foster son purposely pees on brand new toilet rolls "to see them expand" or pees on the floor for no reason.

My former foster son peed everywhere.   I thought the dogs were doing it and set up a camera to see which dog it was.   Nope!  I see Andrew 13 times in a 12 hour span, pulling his pants down and peeing all over everywhere in the dining room.   

We had to throw out the expensive carpet/rug under the table, and scrub down all the chairs, etc....

He also peed in laundry baskets with dirty clothes in them.  Or on his carpet in his bedroom, or in the closet.   ANYWHERE BUT the toilet!   

I don't get any of it.   Definitely NOT an aiming problem.

[MercyA]

My mom always asked my dad and brother to sit. We never had any messy toilets at our house until a brother-in-law came along. 🙂 

[Indigo Blue]

Not talking about your son, Katy, but sometimes there are physical defects that cause aiming problems. It can be hard to know if there is an actual problem when they are so young and tend to pee everywhere anyway. Just a FYI, generally speaking. 

[kbutton]

6 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

sometimes there are physical defects that cause aiming problems

I had one that peed cockeyed from birth until it was fixed when he had surgery for something else, and they included this as a bonus.

3 hours ago, BandH said:

Is the kid who peed yours or a guest?

If it’s a little kid I vote for trying to sink cheerios.  I do not vote for fruit loops because some people think they look delicious floating in there and want to retrieve them arguing the water is “still clean”.  Ask me how I know.

If it’s a bigger kid, I vote for checking each time they leave the bathroom for a while and if there are sprinkles of tinkle they clean the whole bathroom.  They can sit.  They can aim.  They can destroy the evidence (with cleaning supplies). Those are their options.

I agree with all of this. Mine aren't perfect, but unless they are fooling around, it's not been a huge issue. I did have one that was horrified to see food in the toilet, but he has always diverged in his thinking. Most boys do like the targets from what I hear.

When mine were still small, they would kneel on the toilet seat and grab the back of the toilet. It worked extremely well. A friend had mentioned that her son sat backward on the seat when he was really little for both aim and stability, and when I tried that with my older son, the kneeling emerged. 

[Katy]

12 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

Not talking about your son, Katy, but sometimes there are physical defects that cause aiming problems. It can be hard to know if there is an actual problem when they are so young and tend to pee everywhere anyway. Just a FYI, generally speaking. 

I walked in, he laughed and suddenly jerked up with his hand and leaned back to laugh at a joke told out in the hall. I don't think there's a physical problem, I think it's an attention thing. Especially because it's not constant, and it's happened about once every two weeks since it started.

[Katy]

2 hours ago, DawnM said:

Is this a foster situation?

No, it's my son. His doctor did adjust his ADHD meds recently so that might have something to do with it. I'm pretty sure it's attention, not trauma or any of the weird situations you describe. Eeek.

[Indigo Blue]

9 minutes ago, Katy said:

I walked in, he laughed and suddenly jerked up with his hand and leaned back to laugh at a joke told out in the hall. I don't think there's a physical problem, I think it's an attention thing. Especially because it's not constant, and it's happened about once every two weeks since it started.

Oh, yes. I agree. 

[Indigo Blue]

14 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I had one that peed cockeyed from birth until it was fixed when he had surgery for something else, and they included this as a bonus.

Same. Tonsillectomy and whatever the pee pee fixer surgery was called. At the same time. 😕 That wasn’t fun. 

[Indigo Blue]

@kbuttonside note: Isn’t that interesting that we have this in both our families and also….all the other stuff we’ve talked about before. All the connective tissue stuff, etc. Just noticed that. 

[Mom_to3]

Mine all sit at home. We've not had any questions about it, since DH has always done that too. 

[KSera]

18 minutes ago, Mom_to3 said:

Mine all sit at home. We've not had any questions about it, since DH has always done that too. 

Same. Makes zero sense to dh for anyone to stand up in their own home. I’m glad it was always just how it’s done. We have never had the “boy mess” other people talk about. 

[fairfarmhand]

5 hours ago, Katy said:

My kid, yes older than 4. Probably distracted not willfully bad, based on the fact it’s happened before recently and I walked in to put towels away (to be fair he left the door open) and found him aim up when he was laughing at something a brother said from another room. I have made him clean it up, his dad has made him clean it up. It’s his 4th offense in about 2 months. 

My ds had to stop using the main bathroom and had to use the parents bathroom. That way if there was a mess I knew it wasn’t me or my dh. 
 

i also had success when it became a constant problem making that young man clean the bathroom and toilet area every day. He learned to swab around the toilet seat bolts with a q tip and around the seal on the floor with a stretched out cleaning wipe. He learned that pee gets everywhere when you don’t aim and it became far less trouble to hit the toilet every time.

[Scarlett]

9 hours ago, fairfarmhand said:

My ds had to stop using the main bathroom and had to use the parents bathroom. That way if there was a mess I knew it wasn’t me or my dh. 
 

i also had success when it became a constant problem making that young man clean the bathroom and toilet area every day. He learned to swab around the toilet seat bolts with a q tip and around the seal on the floor with a stretched out cleaning wipe. He learned that pee gets everywhere when you don’t aim and it became far less trouble to hit the toilet every time.

I would walk by the hall bathroom and see drops on the floor from the hallway.  Every time I did (almost daily) I would text the one I knew did it and say ‘please clean the bathroom floor’.  It was a long time…..earlier I said 17 but I think it might have been 18, before he stopped make a mess.  

[kbutton]

17 hours ago, Indigo Blue said:

@kbuttonside note: Isn’t that interesting that we have this in both our families and also….all the other stuff we’ve talked about before. All the connective tissue stuff, etc. Just noticed that. 

Yes!

Edited to delete some specifics for future privacy.

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by kbutton

[Indigo Blue]

3 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Yes! The urologist said it was because he was circ'd (and he seemed to suggest that it develops over time from rubbing on diapers), but he peed like that before then. It was one of the first things we noticed about his newborn self. 

 

At the risk of sounding like a know it all, I don’t always think doctors connect all the dots on uncommon medical problems. It makes sense to me, complete sense, that you’d see common threads like this in families with mito/connective tissue stuff where you see a plethora of different “oddities” for lack of a better word. It makes more sense in your case (IMO) that it has nothing to do with a diaper problem and everything to do with the other genetic stuff going on. 

[kbutton]

12 minutes ago, Indigo Blue said:

At the risk of sounding like a know it all, I don’t always think doctors connect all the dots on uncommon medical problems.

Especially when they are playing the odds. The rarer the disorder, sure, you will see fewer patients. But it's not anything like, "You'll see this once in your career" like they are told in med school, if for no other reason than that these folks will require more contact with medical people than is typical in their lifespan.

This particular issue is not referenced at all in literature about my son's disorder, but we have a lot of weird, CTD-light stuff in the larger family. And we joke that every time someone gets any imaging, the doctor says some version of, "BTW, did you know...?" followed by something quirky about their body, lol!

[Indigo Blue]

9 minutes ago, kbutton said:

Especially when they are playing the odds. The rarer the disorder, sure, you will see fewer patients. But it's not anything like, "You'll see this once in your career" like they are told in med school, if for no other reason than that these folks will require more contact with medical people than is typical in their lifespan.

This particular issue is not referenced at all in literature about my son's disorder, but we have a lot of weird, CTD-light stuff in the larger family. And we joke that every time someone gets any imaging, the doctor says some version of, "BTW, did you know...?" followed by something quirky about their body, lol!

Yes. That all makes sense. Also, the discovery of odd things….