My son is 15 years old and still wets the bed. I don’t know what to do. At school, he’s being teased about it. How can I help him overcome this challenge?
I once heard a neighbour threaten his son aged 15 some years back. She shouted, “If you don’t stop wetting your bed, I shall be tying a live snake around your waist at night so that when you pee on your bed, the snake bites you!”
On further enquiry two days later, the parent told me that the son stopped wetting his bed at the age of four; however, when he was 11 years old, he suddenly started wetting his bed at night, and the issue had persisted for four years.
Bedwetting (nocturnal enuresis) is a condition where a person involuntarily urinates while sleeping, and it's often associated with children, though sometimes it may also affect adults.
Most children learn bladder control by around the age of 4 or 5; however, there are times, due to different reasons or circumstances, they may lose that control and end up wetting their bed at night.
If your pre-teen or teenager suddenly starts wetting their bed and is unable to stop, do not mock or threaten them. It only destroys their self-esteem and may sometimes lead to depression. No teenager pees on their bed intentionally, so when these accidents occur, they are very confused, embarrassed and need all the support from their families.
Bedding has to be washed or aired almost daily, and you need to come up with ways to protect your child’s dignity so that their condition is not open to public ridicule at home and in school. For example, teach them how to use adult diapers as you are still trying to seek a permanent solution to the problem.
It is possible the teen could have developed a urinary tract infection (UTI) or any other complications and would need to seek medical attention at a hospital. If this is the case, then relevant medical tests carried out should reveal if there is an infection and or any other condition that may require treatment.
What about the teenager’s diet, and intake of water and other fluids, especially in the evenings? Some choose to stop taking fluids at a specific time, e.g., after 6.00 pm, and it does help them stay dry during the night. Consumption of salty foods late in the evening should be avoided. This is because salty foods encourage the kidneys to produce more urine, as the kidneys work extra hard to remove excess salt from the body and in the process produce increased volumes of urine.
Could your teenager be struggling with any stress or anxiety? Stressful situations within the family, in your neighbourhood or at school may lead to bedwetting among pre-teens and teenagers.
Family instability, death or illness in the family or that of a friend, bullying at school or around home, pressure to cope with studies or even changes at school may cause sudden bed-wetting in children.
Similarly, unprocessed grief from past trauma, which could include physical assault or sexual molestation, may also lead to nocturnal enuresis.
Corporal punishment or taunting the child is not a remedy for bedwetting; if anything, it just makes things worse because the child just becomes more stressed or even depressed. When medical tests reveal that there is nothing physically wrong with the child, then there is a need for the parent to seek therapy from clinical psychologists and professional counsellors.
These sessions may help unravel the genesis of the trauma to enable the pre-teen or teenager to process their past grief or other trauma. Except in rare cases, the teenager eventually overcomes the trauma, and the bedwetting completely stops.
