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Just Like Mom and Dad
Let Your Bedwetting Child Know He's Not Alone
By Teri Brown
"Sharing your own experiences with your child allows for them to feel some sense of comfort that they are not alone, and it fortifies their sense of being OK about themselves when they see their parent has moved through a similar challenge," Dr. Danuloff says. "Sharing yourself will give your child the freedom to share whatever may be bothering them about the bedwetting."
According to Dr. Danuloff, embarrassment often leads to silence. Bedwetters often live with feelings of fear of discovery, shame, low self-esteem and feeling different. "Very often the bedwetting child will suffer silently," he says. "Just because they don't talk about it doesn't mean it doesn't bother them." Sharing your experiences with your child can help draw him out and tell you what he is feeling about bedwetting.
Dr. Charles Shubin, director of pediatrics at the Mercy Medical Center in Baltimore, Md., agrees. "I think it is important for kids to know their parents went through the same thing because the kids then don't feel that they're so strange," Dr. Shubin says. "Also, the parents' own experiences, good and bad, certainly would help the parents understand what the child is going through and thus be able to help the child through it."
Dr. Shubin also believes that simply sympathizing and empathizing with the child by just letting her know that the parent truly understands what she's going through will help the child process her experiences.