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The Straight Truth
Drying Up Bedwetting Myths
By Kelly Burgess
It's the child's fault. It's the parent's fault. It's an emotional problem. It's just stress. It's a sleep disorder. It's not a problem at all, so don't worry about it. There's no cure. The cure is easy.
These conflicting messages are often what parents of bedwetting children must sort through in order to decide how to help their child. So what to believe? And how to figure it out? We've got the answers.
The official name for bedwetting is enuresis, and it is divided into two categories: primary nocturnal enuresis, which is when a child never really stops wetting the bed, and secondary nocturnal enuresis, where a child who learned to be dry at night, suddenly begins wetting the bed at age 5 or older.
According to Renee Mercer, founder of Enuresis Associates in Maryland, primary nocturnal enuresis affects an estimated five to seven million children in the United States, and it is a medical disorder with a physiological cause.
Children who wet the bed do not do it on purpose as some parents are led to believe. Common misconceptions include children do it to get attention, because they're lazy, because they want to somehow "control" their parents, or because they have a bad attitude.
Shelly Morris, director of the Enuresis Treatment Center in Michigan, has had too much personal experience with bedwetting to ever think a child would continue to wet the bed unless they were completely helpless to stop. "The majority of our counseling is done over the phone and via the Internet simply because it's such a huge self-esteem issue for the child that they would never want to be seen coming in here," says Morris, who wet the bed herself until the age of 19. "You can't tell me that it is a stubbornness or behavioral problem. Believe me, they want to stop."
Want to see more?
- Oh Brother, I Wet the Bed
- The Effects of Divorce on Children – A Potential Cause for Bedwetting
- Wet, but Dry
- Good Mornings: Bedwetting and Your Child
- Daytime Wetting – Helping Your Child Stay Dry
- Strategies to Maintain Bedwetters' Self-Esteem: Four Helpful Tips for Parents
- Childhood Baby Blues: The Effects of a New Baby on Bedwetting