Foster Parent Q&A: Help! My RAD Child Needs a Door Alarm, but Then Pees in his Room!

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by John and Diane. 

Hi Friends,

The issue of kids, foster or adoptive kids especially, urinating in their rooms, closets or in other inappropriate areas is huge and a very difficult issue to deal with and correct. The source of the issue needs to be determined while simultaneously dealing with the symptom of inappropriate peeing.  We have addressed this issue in the past in our post:  Why is My Foster or Adopted Kid Urinating in The Closet (in a Jar, Towel, Hamper, Soda Can): The Red (or Yellow in this Case) Flag and How to Deal with It.

Here again though, is a question from a blog reader regarding their RAD kid and how to address the complex issue of room urination, food hoarding and room security. We are sharing it here in hopes it will help other parents, and that other parents might be able to make suggestions that may help our reader.  As always, the letter is anonymous to protect everyone’s privacy.

Question from our reader:

"Hi -- I was scouring the Internet looking for anything helpful in dealing with peeing and RAD behavior.  Our son came to us at age 4 and is now 11.  We have seen a drastic upswing in RAD behavior in the last 6 months.  He has have gone from peeing the bed rarely (once every 6-8 months) when he first came to us, to occasionally (once every 2-4 months), regularly (3 to 4 days in a row, followed by 6-8 weeks of nothing), to nearly every night. The only thing that we have done differently in the last six months is installing an alarm on his door for the nighttime hours. 

His door has to be shut and the alarm engaged.  This is because, while we can't definitively prove that he is stealing food (usually candy) or other food items or prove that he is up and sneaking around the house, there are just enough times that we can't quite track all the bagels/candy/food distribution, and there are just enough bumps in the night that we can't place. We also have two little kiddos in the house that were making their way into our room every night.  After the alarm was installed the kiddos have nearly ceased in coming to our room, the bumps have stopped and the kitchen has been fairly undisturbed. 

However, this has drastically increased the amount of peeing that has gone on.  It is all a game to him, with him readily admitting that if the alarm were removed he wouldn't have to pee in his room. We have explained with great patience that the alarm isn't preventing him from going to the potty; it is just allowing us the privilege of knowing where he is at and that he is safe. He is required to clean up his mess, rinse out his bedding and get it to the laundry.  This also led to a power struggle and blame game on his part, if I didn't get his laundry done because the day was full and I had other engagements, then he "won". I recently switched to a weekly laundry day, mainly because our family is now a family of six and it seemed like a better use of my time to designate one day for laundry rather than doing laundry all week long. I had hoped that this would curb the peeing because he would now be without bedding for longer than just a few hours in the evening.  Nope, no dice.

We are so weary of this behavior, since we live in very northern latitude, this can get really stinky in the wintertime.  Any suggestions/wisdom would be greatly appreciated."

Answer: Foster Parent Rescue:

Hi there, Thanks for writing. I am glad you reached out and I am hopeful we can help you.

I have a question: Is he sharing a room other kids?

I found that alarm systems are good if you are trying to keep a child in a room, but now the child is using it against you.

I would recommend using a camera instead of an alarm system because you want to punish the behavior of leaving the room to get food or prowl the house, not leave the room to go to the bathroom.  See the difference?

You want to be able to record nighttime activities and then discipline and correct the nighttime prowling behavior and cameras work great with RAD kids (they cant lie when their activities are recorded.)

With the other children, they are fine, so they don’t need an alarm system.

The peeing issue may be due to a medication issue, so he may need to use the bathroom, but with the alarm system, he has an excuse to not leave his room and use your rules against you.

RAD kids LOVE to use your rules against you. So, make the punishment for continued peeing in his room a little more extreme.  You need to teach him to do his OWN laundry. He is 11 years old. He can throw his own sheets in the laundry.  And you can always pre measure the soap and everything in zip lock bags etc. That way it is no longer punishment for YOU by him wetting his bed.

Take his cleaning of his mess to an extreme as well. If he puts the wet sheets on the floor, tell him he must scrub the floors as well. Make this a very unpleasant task for him to deal with. Take the burden off of you entirely and make it much more of a burden to him.

I don’t know when you got the other children in the household, but RAD children will act up when new children come into the house because they lose some contact with the caregiver, so that might have been a trigger for the behavior. So, this might be an understandable situation.

If you can dedicate 20 minutes to the child, (which you are probably doing already) but make it special to him by saying, "This is YOUR time," and make it positive time with him, since you have these other children in the home, that will help him with the behavioral problems as well, knowing that he has special time with you in positive interactions.

RAD kids always think that they don’t have everything that other kids have, so be sure to point out to him all the things that he has special that the other kids may not have, like privileges and special things in his room or whatever because he is the oldest. 

You have to Guilt the child into behaving well.  I know it sounds crazy, but it works. Have him help you (supervised of course) with the little ones It shows that you trust him. Just in a limited way.

Of course, these are suggestions with just what we know of this situation. Clearly, the alarm is not working. You'd be better off putting the alarm on the pantry, or where you keep the food. Have you tried removing the alarm and if so, does the peeing in the room stop?

Let me know what you think and if you try some of these solutions. You are not alone. We can work through this together I am sure.

We will be praying for you....

Diane and John

Do you have ideas or suggestions for our reader? Please feel free to share. 

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