{"id":14814,"date":"2025-06-25T23:55:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-25T23:55:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/14814\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T23:55:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T23:55:09","slug":"what-should-i-do-about-my-kid-who-thinks-its-ok-to-act-inappropriately-at-the-pool-its-not-a-toilet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/14814\/","title":{"rendered":"What should I do about my kid who thinks it’s OK to act inappropriately at the pool? It’s not a toilet!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Care and Feeding is Slate\u2019s parenting advice column.\u00a0Have a question for Care and Feeding?\u00a0<\/strong>Submit it here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Care and Feeding,\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I just learned my son has been doing something truly vile.<\/p>\n

The warmer weather has been back in our area for a little over a month now.\u00a0Many of our friends and relatives have swimming pools (we do, too). Last weekend, we were at my sister\u2019s place and had been in the pool for a good three hours when it came time to leave.\u00a0Before we went home, I asked my 7-year-old son, \u201cNoah\u201d if he needed to use the restroom, and he said, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the drive back home, I joked that Noah must have a bladder of steel since he\u2019d had no fewer than three iced teas while he was in the pool! Noah replied that no, he just urinated when he was in the pool, so he didn\u2019t have to get out and use the bathroom.\u00a0I was horrified and asked if this was something he had done before. He said, \u201cAll the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

I laid down the law with him. I made clear that this was never to happen again. I explained how harmful and disrespectful it was to everyone in the water around him and that it throws the pool chemicals out of balance.\u00a0Noah agreed not to do it again, but I\u2019m not sure I completely trust him. I got the sense he didn\u2019t seem to think he did anything wrong. What can I do to make sure he keeps his word?<\/p>\n

\u2014Parent of a Pool Pisser<\/p>\n

Dear Pool Pissing Parent,<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    Gross. Lakes maybe, but your own aunt\u2019s swimming pool?! It\u2019s wonderful that Noah was honest with you about what he did, but it\u2019s a shame that you don\u2019t feel you can trust him not to do this again. To make him understand that what he did was gross (I\u2019m purposely not using the word \u201cwrong\u201d here because kids often see \u201cwrong\u201d as a blanket term for \u201cstuff adults don\u2019t like\u201d), appeal to his sense of empathy. Ask him how he would feel if he found out someone was peeing next to him in the pool. Ask him how far away they would need to be for him to feel comfortable. Heck, hop in a pool with him and figure out his appropriate \u201cpee radius\u201d by asking him as you get further and further away when he would feel comfortable with you peeing. Hopefully, he never finds it OK for someone else to pee in the pool at any radius and you\u2019ll have taught him a valuable lesson in the golden rule. If he still thinks it\u2019s OK, interrogate him as to why it would be acceptable to pee openly when you\u2019re submerged in liquid, but not on land.<\/p>\n

    If you\u2019re still not convinced that he\u2019s convinced, bring out the big guns: The urban myth of the \u201cred dye,\u201d which claims people put a special chemical in pools that turns the water red around someone if they pee. The idea of having a red cloud following him around for all to see might be enough to scare him off. Ideally, you wouldn\u2019t have to resort to lying to him about the current state of pool chemical technology, but it definitely worked for us when we were kids!<\/p>\n

    \u2014Greg<\/p>\n

    More Parenting Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

    Four years ago, my sister had a baby, and when he was learning how to talk, his grandparents, my parents, became \u201cGoGo\u201d and \u201cPapa.\u201d My husband and I now have a 16-month-old daughter. I\u2019m known as \u201cMama,\u201d her dad is \u201cDada,\u201d and she\u2019s just starting to call my parents GoGo and Papa at everyone\u2019s encouragement\u2014except my husband. He cringes every time anyone refers to my dad as Papa and privately fumes to me that he thinks \u201cPapa\u201d should be his name<\/a>.<\/p>\n

    The latest sex, parenting, and money advice from our columnists delivered to your inbox three times a week.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Care and Feeding is Slate\u2019s parenting advice column.\u00a0Have a question for Care and Feeding?\u00a0Submit it here. Dear Care…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":14815,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[600,246,251,159,5597,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-14814","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-family","10":"tag-kids","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-slate-plus","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114746709247380116","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14814\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}