Parent’s attitudes play a large part in the successful treatment of their child’s bedwetting.

In a study done by MJ Morrison in the year 2000, he interviewed 40 children and their parents. The children had an average age of 8 years. 95% wet the bed at least 3 nights a week, 60% wet the bed every night and 5% also had daytime wetting.

Amongst the results in the study, he found that 16% of parents reported they were too busy to help their child with the treatments for nocturnal enuresis. The study reported that if parents made more time available to help their children, then there may be fewer early dropouts from treatment. 

This raises the question about whether we as parents may be contributing to the number of treatment resistant children. What’s your thoughts on this? 

Undergoing alarm treatment, as effective as it is, can be viewed by most families as time consuming and resource intensive. It can require heavy involvement by the parent. That could be why some parents prefer less labour intensive strategies like using pull ups or administering medication. 

On the other end of the scale, some parents of bedwetting children are overprotective and shower their child with extra care and attention. The child therefore can not develop their independence. And we know how important it is for a bedwetting child to take on responsibility and own their problem, right?  

Some parents prefer to sweep the problem under the carpet and are too afraid to talk to their child about their bedwetting in case it upsets their child. 

In an article published in the British Journal of Urology, a study was conducted on ‘parents’ and young people’s attitudes towards bedwetting and their influence on behaviour, including readiness to engage in and persist with treatment’.

The results of that study suggest that most parents occasionally believe that they are helpless, feel helpless and behave as though they are helpless to influence the young person’s bedwetting. 

So to help you out, you’ll find below this article, a downloadable PDF which is called the ‘conditional matrix’. It demonstrates the relationship between the parent’s and the child’s perception of themselves as helpless.

I encourage you to study the conditions highlighted in the matrix and circle the box which best fits your situation at this point in time. 

You may find your results quite interesting!