Hellobee

When our son struggled with potty training and constipation a few years ago, we turned to Tom DuHamel, PhD AKA Dr. Tom. He used to be the Chief Psychologist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and has been working with sufferers of childhood constipation for 30 years. He wrote a book called, The Ins And Outs Of Poop, which had a six-step program which basically cured Charlie of his constipation and got him potty trained very quickly.

Step one of his program is all about educating the family, as Dr. Tom explained in an interview we did last year:

MR. BEE: Step one [of your program] is educating the family. I noticed you emphasize the whole family. Does that include the child as well as the parents?

DR. TOM: Absolutely! First I go through the digestive system with the parents and I talk about what’s happening: why is the child withholding or why the child having soiling accidents? In another session, I will do the same thing but at a slightly lower age level with the child and the parents together.

People need to know what the specifics of the problem are, so that they can better understand what the treatment is all about: why am I taking a laxative and why am I having to sit on the toilet after I eat and so forth. So, yes, it does include the child.

We bought a children’s book about pooping that was helpful for Charlie, but I noticed that he wasn’t that into reading it. Dr. Tom’s six-step program still worked great for us though, and Charlie was cured – even if he hadn’t learned as much about the whole constipation process as we had hoped.  

Then this fall, Dr. Tom contacted us to let us know that he had written a children’s book about poop. He sent us a copy and to my surprise, both of my kids absolutely loved it – way more than the other books we had bought in desperation.  (And we bought quite a few! We ended up reading a lot about childhood constipation and potty training – not a subject you ever really expect to obsess about.  But when your child is in pain, you do what you have to do!)

Why did the kids love Dr. Tom’s book so much?  I think it’s because it embraces poop in a way that most books don’t. Most people have an inherent discomfort talking about poop, and most children’s books reflect that. Dr. Tom’s children’s book has no problems talking about poop though; in fact it’s called, “Softy the Poop: Helping Families Talk About Poop”.

The kids chortled with glee when they saw the cover of the book, which actually shows Softy himself in all of his glory (basically a less constipated version of Mr. Hankey, the Christmas Poo). The kids loved reading all about Softy. I even noticed that after they read the book, they started talking about whether or not their poops were a Softy – which helps raise their awareness about how the food they eat affects their poop (a key factor in constipation).

The book is very informational: there’s no storyline involving Softy’s adventures. I’ve found that my kids usually prefer books with stories, but in this case they didn’t seem to mind at all. They kept laughing at every page, when Softy would talk about the different kinds of poop. Lesson learned: poop trumps storyline every time. The focus on information allows the book to transfer as much information as possible, while the Softy character provides endless entertainments for the kids.

Understanding how poop works is huge for kids – not just in dealing with constipation, but also in the potty training process. This book just shot to the top of my list of books to recommend to parents about to start potty training their kids.

I give this book my highest recommendation! You can check it out on Amazon here, or check out Dr. Tom’s website at theinsandoutsofpoop.com.