My 4Yr Old Is Having Potty Accidents During Time Outs

Sounds like your son is peeing intentionally to make you mad. My daughter did this once while having a tantrum. What worked for me was making her clean up her own mess. She had to take off the wet clothes, put them in the wash herself (I helped her with the soap), and then clean up the floor with a paper towel.

This also helped with the somewhat unintentional accidents overnight when she said she was too tired to get up to go to the bathroom. Once we started making her do most of the work in cleaning it up the accidents went away. It has been over 3 months since she has had an accident (night or day).

Instead of asking Why? Ask him what he is trying to accomplish in hitting his brother or in any of the situations you are having. You need to undertsand the behavior to correct it. I just hate when I hear the word "punish"(one of the responders used it). Do you really want your child punished? Or do you want them to learn?

It may be that he needs more from you but he is not sure how to get it.

Tell him if he needs help resolving a situation with his brother to ask for your help instead of hurting. Also I always think of how we are teaching our children as a pyramid. At the bottom, when they are young, we have to put tons of effort into it. We have to build this huge base with TONS of bricks. As they get older we get closer to the point. Closer to them getting the point to all of the things we have been teaching them over the years.

Four is still young. He is still really learning what it means to be a part of the human race. You will hit bumps in the road but he IS learning from it and one day he will put what he has learned to good use :o)

Besides when he is with you he is safe to do whatever he wants(you will ALWAYS love him). Explore new and old actions to see what the REaction is different times. What is he like around other people? That is the true judge of his character.

Good Luck and have fun!
~A.
~*side note*~ Have the boys pick out special sleeping bags for your room. The may take a little longer to grow out of but it might be easier to get them to use in the first place :o) It's a hard transition for them and that may make it more exciting.

Are you sure you don't have my four year old? Well, he poops instead of pees and does it no matter what the 'punishment' is. He does it when he gets frustrated about anything.
I have started a sticker chart for ANYTHING and EVERYTHING good that I see him doing. From eating a good supper, to mindlessly picking up his brothers cup and gives it back to him. He loves sticking the stickers up on the board (we got tiny stickers and some grid tag board from target). We then cut them in half and when he gets one totally full (hundreds of stickers, but he gets like 10 a day) he gets to pick something to do with the family.
I am interested in hearing what others have to say too!!!
Thanks for the question

I think you're on the right track with doing different punishments for being naughty instead of the time-outs.

We've eliminated time-outs entirely with our 4 yr old because she has so many other things we can punish her with, by taking things away, etc. They are smart...and, since he knows the rules, and knows hitting is not acceptable, have a conversation with him ahead of time about hitting and tell him that you expect him not to hit anymore and if he does, he will be punished. It seems like the naughty step might not be strict enough for him to think twice about his actions before hand. Or...he thinks that spending time on the naughty step is a small price to pay for being able to hit his brother. I'd up the anti and hang something special over his head but nothing specific. What I mean is...don't tell him you're going to take his spiderman car away, just tell him you're going to take something away from him. That way, you're not locked into taking that spiderman car away when he might not even care about it at the time you take it away, so for him, he's thinking..."who cares...take it."
Denighing him whatever he's playing with at the time he's naughty is a good punishment because it'll interrupt his play with whatever he's playing with, and he'll understand the consequences better. Good luck.

Haha, he's winning a battle with you. Now HIS time outs are getting your goat because he's making you mad.
My son did that. What I did was make him take a potty break before getting his time out. If he peed his pants after that it was on purpose, for sure, and then he would get a nap.
Worked like a charm.
Good luck,
J.
Mom of 4 going on 5.

He's working you over and you know it. Tell him that if he continues to have 'accidents' he'll have to wear diapers like his little brother again. OR you could put him in charge of cleaning up his pee after timeouts. He could have to rinse his dirty underwear in the toilet.