I'm with MWM. WHY do psychologists keep insisting that what our kids do is calculated attention-seeking? I get so cranky about it... because so often, far from it being meticulous calculated behaviour, it's more likely to be impulsive and thoughtless - because frankly, THAT is more like what our kids really are.
I have VERY good and detailed memories of my childhood. I can remember toilet training. I got the knack of it without too much trouble, but I did NOT like the feel of the potty. However, it still felt safer than sitting over that very big, scary hole and feeling like I would fall in. And the sound it made when it was flushed - it was scary, I didn't want to be in the room.
What was also weird - having to perform 'on cue' - my body had to learn to 'let go' when I sat on the toilet, part of me wanted to not go because it felt 'wrong'. I had to keep telling myself, "this is how it is done." Watching my mother helped me understand this better, too.
But I still had accidents sometimes, especially if I was caught up in a game outside and didn't want to interrupt halfway. I remember one time (with No 2) I was running and playing with friends at a neighbour's house (they had an outside toilet, there really was no excuse) and I simply waited too long. I ran down the yard but didn't quite get there in time. I was so embarrassed, that I did my best to clean up by myself - I would have been about 6, not quite sure.
These things happen. I remember needing to get used to my body cues, and to also learn to listen to my body's warning signals. If I ignored my body, I paid for it.
The biggest shame came from my sister and any friends I was with, rather than my mother. She was always matter-of-fact about it, telling me to put my soiled clothing in the laundry. I was expected to clean up within reason, to not make more work for my mother due to my own carelessness.
Maybe my memory helped me understand my own kids better, but it still wasn't an easy road with them - they were VERY different from my own experiences.
The girls toilet-trained quickly and easily. With ALL the kids, as they were learning, they also had to learn to help with practical management of their own laundry. There was no shame in having a wet bed, but I did ask them to help me strip the bed, and re-make it. We'd work as a team, it wasn't a shame thing. On washing days I would also ask them to strip their beds and help me make them up again with clean, dry sheets right off the clothesline. So getting them to change their beds when wet was more an extension of that practicality, rather than punishment. I mean, they couldn't leave it there, could they?
Similarly, with soiled pants. I would help at least with strategy - we would take the pants off in the shower recess, put the pants in a bucket, hose the child down with the hand-held shower (an older child could wash him/herself off and preserve modesty if they wished) and then inspect everything before they left the shower recess. I would put my hand inside a plastic bag and pick up any 'bits' for disposal, and in doing so teach them how to do it for themselves. The soiled clothing would be by now in the bucket which we would half-fill with water and hand-wash gently to get it to a state of only stained, not lumpy as well. We would then together take the dirty clothing to the laundry and put it in the washing machine.
No shame involved, as far away from shame as we could get. It was a no-fault situation, but no fault with still the need to deal with it.
Soiled clothing that has been left, needs extra treatment. I would be teaching her how to deal with it - first a soak to rehydrate it, then hand-wash (you can use a plumber's helper to get a mini washing machine agitator effect) before setting up the washing machine. I do not think 8 years old is too young to learn how to load the washing machine.
It's the same for me with difficult child 1's dirty work shirts now - because he doesn't change them often enough, they need special treatment to get them clean. Because it is at least partly due to his slovenly ways that more work has been made for SOMEONE, I make HIM clean them. Why should I have more work to do, simply because he has been too inconsiderate to change his clothes more often?
That's about cleaning. How to fix the problem of lying about it?
Use your nose, regularly. If she has soiled herself, it is unlikely she will have completely deodorised herself, unless she changed everything else she was wearing as well.
Sit down with her and talk about it - hiding the evidence only compounds the problem and makes inevitable discovery more certain and more unpleasant. The better way to cover up the problem is for her to deal with the evidence more appropriately, by disguising it as ordinary laundry. in other words, if she rinses the undies herself, and puts them in a bucket in the laundry, then goes through whatever washing regime (for herself) that you organise between you, the result will be no added workload for you - the aim here.
Make sure there is a bucket for her to put the soiled pants into. Disposable gloves available may make it easier for her to do this. She needs to be drilled in how to clean herself up as well, including a thorough wet wash (we use nappy wash cloths, even for adults in this house) followed by some sort of barrier, such as a rub with olive oil (it stops the tail burning from the caustic waste products, the merest remaining trace of which can cause significant discomfort and make the problem worse).
If she already has a sanctioned hiding place for 'the evidence', then maybe she will stop hiding them from you. She needs to understand that YOU ARE ON HER SIDE. This is a problem for a surprising number of people across all intelligences, classes, races, etc. It happens to good people, it happens to bad people. Teach her that it's just one of those things - what matters more is not what is happening, it's how you deal with it.
The bedwetting - from experience, limiting bedtime fluids doesn't work. Doesn't make any difference, in fact. What is SUPPOSED to happen as the brain matures, is our bodies learn to slow down the kidneys overnight as we sleep, so any urine produced is done over a longer period and is more concentrated. Think about how much you 'go' during the day, over an 8 hour period. Now think about how you could hold that in overnight - what you pass in the morning is generally far less. OK, you drink water during the day, but not THAT much.
Children's brains take longer to switch the kidneys into overnight mode. ADD kids seem to take longer still, plus the mental effort of their days seems to make them sleep all the more soundly. A bad mix.
difficult child 3 took a long time to be bladder-trained at night. we tried restricting fluids at night, but he would almost sleep-walk to get to water from wherever he could get it. WHen we found he was getting a lot of water, we also found the bed was no wetter than when we successfully restricted intake. Then when night after night he would get out of bed to refill his 1 litre water bottle, then DRAIN IT and fill it again, without subsequently flooding the bed, we knew we had broken a myth. He still sleeps with several bottles of water near his bed, so he doesn't have to keep going to the bathroom to refill the bottles. And these days, he's dry in the mornings, despite seemingly being waterlogged. His brain has matured so he's gone from permanently damp to having the capacity of Hoover Dam.
What you CAN try - wake her and take her to the toilet just as YOU are heading for bed. We used to call this "toilet time" with our kids. We'd wake them with, "Come one, time to go to the toilet, it's toilet time."
"But I don't wanna, I don't need to..." (assuming they were coherent at all)
"I don't care, it's toilet time. Time to just sit, and try. Empty out what you can. As soon as you've done that, we can both get to bed."
It worked well, especially for the more easy child of our kids. And even the worst of them, it made a difference.
Other things we tried - we put a liner on the bed, under the bottom sheet. We DID NOT use plastic sheet, which feels awful and makes a horrible crinkly noise (I well remember having to sleep with a plastic-lined bed, and I hated it). We use vinyl instead - it's quiet, plus being heavier, it stays put better.
In desperate situations, we'd sometimes 'toilet time' at 3 am, or 5 am.
We used rewards - "Wow! A dry bed! We have extra time now we don't have to do the extra laundry, let's play a quick game!"
Keep the kid warm at night - being cold makes your kidneys shed a lot more liquid (for any of us, at any age).
Pull-ups often don't allow the child to feel wet and so they don't develop the conditioned response like they should. So get her to wear undies to bed, either alone (no Pull-Ups) or inside the Pull-Ups.
If you want to really work on toilet training, save it for warmer weather. And have lots of spare pairs of undies.
Good luck - she WILL get there.
Marg