Going to the bathroom can hurt. The colon and rectum stretch. This can hurt the nerves. It can hurt the muscles. Then the colon can't signal the brain that it is time to go to the bathroom.
Wet feces can leak out.
They get past the hard, dry stool. They stain a child's clothes. Encopresis happens because a child's colon doesn't work as it should. Your child complains about clothes being too tight around the waist. You can feel a hard mass at one side of your child's stomach.