Why Kids Want Someone Else in the Bathroom (And What To Do About It)
Last Tuesday, I was at the kitchen stove stirring oatmeal for my two kids, scrolling work emails on my phone when I burned the edge of my own bowl. That’s when my 7-year-old Leo yelled from the hall: “Mom! Can someone stay in the bathroom with me while I go?” My 10-year-old Mia was already in there brushing her teeth, mid-tangle with her hairbrush. She groaned, I sighed, and Leo yelled again, louder: “C’mon, I have to go now! Just stay, please!”
Mia rolled her eyes, leaned against the sink, and said “Fine, I’m here.” A minute later, I could hear Leo going about his business while Mia updated him on the latest TikTok drama from her friend group. That’s when it hit me how many people don’t talk about this specific, awkward little quirk of kid behavior: if you’re a parent of a kid under 8, you’ve almost definitely had this moment, where you’re standing in a hallway waiting, or sharing the bathroom, because your kid won’t go alone.
As a part-time paraprofessional in our district’s lower elementary, I see this all the time too. Last fall, we had a first grader who held her bladder for 6 hours straight every day for three weeks, until she ended up with a urinary tract infection and a note from the pediatrician. Turns out she just was too nervous to use the big school bathroom alone. Once we agreed the recess aide would stand right outside the stall for her, she had no problem going. Another kindergarten boy I work with only uses the bathroom if his best friend goes with him and stands in the next stall. It looks silly to us, but it works for him.
After that Tuesday morning, I sat down with Leo that night after bedtime snacks and asked him why he likes having someone around. I expected him to say he was scared of the dark, or spiders (there was a spider in the tub back in May that he still brings up). He thought about it for a minute, then said “It’s just boring and quiet alone. And what if I need help wiping, or I drop my phone? You’re not right there.” It sounds silly to adults, but when you think about it, every other thing he’s done his whole life, someone’s been nearby to help. Learning to do this private, physical thing alone takes a lot more time than we give it credit for. A lot of kids also have experience with painful constipation when they’re little, and that leaves them nervous about being alone when it hurts—if you’ve ever had a cramp mid-poop, you get why you’d want someone nearby to call for help.
I used to think we needed to break Leo of this habit as fast as possible. I’d tell him “You’re a big boy now, you can do this alone” and shut the door, and he’d end up holding it for a whole day, which gave him a stomach ache and made the whole problem worse. Then I brought it up to our pediatrician at his last checkup, and she told me it’s a totally normal developmental phase for kids 4 to 8, and shaming them or pushing them to be independent before they’re ready just creates a cycle of anxiety and constipation that lasts way longer than the phase would if you just work with it.
She gave me a few small, concrete things to try that have worked way better than forcing independence. First, you don’t have to be in the same bathroom if it makes you uncomfortable. We started agreeing that I’ll stand 10 steps outside the door, and talk the whole time about whatever random thing we were talking about before. Leo knows I’m there if he needs me, and I don’t have to hang out in the bathroom smelling whatever. For school, if your kid is nervous, you can ask the teacher for a small accommodation—most teachers would rather let a kid use the bathroom near the classroom with a friend than deal with a kid holding it all day and having a meltdown from a stomach ache. If your kid is scared of something specific, like spiders, you can do a quick check of the bathroom together once a week, leave the door cracked, or leave the hall light on so it’s not totally dark. You can also stretch the distance gradually: first you’re in the bathroom, then right outside the door, then down the hall, over a few weeks, instead of cutting it off cold turkey. That way they build confidence slowly, without the stress.
Last week we had my sister and her husband over for taco night, and Leo had to go, so he yelled out to my sister to come stand outside the door. I felt my face get hot for a second, ready to apologize, but my sister just laughed and said “Sure, bud” and leaned against the wall telling him about her new puppy the whole time. She told me her oldest did the exact same thing until he was 8, and she worried about it for years, and now he locks the door and yells if anyone even knocks.
Leo still asks for someone to be nearby about half the time. Some weeks he goes to the bathroom alone every time, and other weeks, like when he had a stomach bug last month, he asks me to stay in the bathroom the whole time. It’s not linear, and it’s not always convenient, but it’s not the big problem I thought it was when it first started. I don’t know when he’ll stop asking, and I don’t worry about it as much as I used to. Some days, I’m in the shower and he knocks and comes in to brush his teeth anyway, just to tell me about a game he’s playing. It’s awkward, it’s messy, and it’s just where we are right now.
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