I was reading through another thread on here about teaching your child about their body parts, and how important it is to teach them the correct names for things. So I was wondering, is there a book or something to help you teach them this? What is a good age to start teaching them?
We have a book called Everyone's Got A Bottom that I would reccommend for any house. The boys enjoy it (although Imran mainly likes spotting the cat on each page lol) and it introduces self-protective strategies and the correct names etc in a really non-threatening way.
Yasin is 3 and he likes this book.
I think that you can use the correct names from birth. If you've been using other names you can just switch over any time.
We just used penis always! In the bath, wash your arms, legs, penis etc at first when we were doing it & then no he does it we remind him where to clean. If he was playing with it even as a baby we'd say something about it. Now with Juliette he is getting a bit confused & calling it a bottom, but we tell him no this is her bottom & this is her vagina. He got muddled though & though the bit above it was the vagina & told me the other day "this is my gina mummy" pointing to the bit just above his penis LOL! I think we need a bit more practise on that one
I have a slight "problem" with teaching dd the correct names for her genitals. I just feel that she's a little girl and does not yet have a vagina, kwim?? It's so small and inoccent and well, vagina, not even thinking about penis, is such a grown-up word *sigh* I know I have to get over it and teach her because I know how important it is.
This caused a lot of controversy in our house. We've been teaching DD body parts and we have moved on to her "bits" (much to DH's horror!). I feel it is important she know the correct terminology of her anatomy which has DH mortified. He thinks she should call it her "bits". DD has picked it up well though and tries to say it back to me... although it comes out as a cross between bannana and jemima! LOL
We use gina in this house....Chelsea has no clue though. She showers with DH and we say doodle.
Like Nadine im not ready to call the parts by the right name...i feel she is to young right now to be saying vagina and penis. She says boobies however...but thats cute!
OMG ... KIM, I was only telling a friend yesterday that my Mum was very much in teaching us as kids the proper names for body parts as such ... like penis, vagina ...
When I was 4 Mum was pregnant with my sister ... my Nan told my Mum that I said to name the baby Gina ... my Mum corrected my Nan & said no she still can't say vagina properly being 4 but I could say "Gina"
We use bottom & doodle. It was what I was brought up with & I didn't really think about it til now. Maybe since Jaz & I have had the 6 year old version of the sex talk - don't ask - I should start telling her the right names for things.
I also think it's cute when dd says titties. This morning I was laying in bed with her and we were talking and "petting" mommies tummy, she turned away and I shifted position and when she looked back, the only bump were my boob, so she slaps me on the boob and says ... baby!!!
Titty - my neices face the first time she saw me bfing. It was hilarious. She looked at me funny & I told her baby's having his ky - maori word for food. She screwed up her face & said 'Out the tittee??' She was shocked!!
Sorry - a bit off track.
We use doodle and gina. DD knows that she is a girl because she has a gina and Daddy is a boy because he has a doodle.
We did try to use penis but we had a HUGE problem in that DD is allergic to peanuts and has been taught to say "I can't eat peanuts, they make me very sick". So when Daddy said to her that he had a penis..... DD said "I can't eat penis, they make me very sick" so after we picked ourselves up off the floor from our hysterics and advised her that she should keep saying that until she is 21 we decided to keep it as doodle
I really struggle to use vagina to descibe all of the female genitals as it is technically not correct. I would much rather use a term like fanny to describe the area in general than use a proper word incorrectly.
Astrid, my mother is the same.. she gets so annoyed when she's see some kind of kids show or one with kids in it, like in Kindergarten Cop), where they refer to the whole of the female genitals as the vagina..
Logan calls his penis, a penis.. For a while he would point to his nipples and say "Apples" I guess it sounds the same. He calls my breasts "Booboos", even though I tell him they're breasts. He walked around the other day with bowls on his chest saying "Look at my booboos Mummy!"
When he comes in the shower he points to my "bits" and says "Where Mummy penis?", but I don't know what to call them so I just say that Logan is a boy so he has a penis and Mummy is a girl and doesn't have a penis. But I think I like Astrids idea of calling it a fanny.. just have to hope he doesn't watch The Nanny and get confused like I did the first time I heard the part about her being thrown out on her fanny! I didn't know at the time in the US they called a bum a fanny.
Like others, I have used the correct words from the start. When washing etc, it has always been "penis" and when talking about me we have said "vagina". DH is very much of the opinion that it is also important for them to know the slang words, as they will hear these at kindy etc. So we have introduced those too, but taught the correct words first, and still use these most of the time. I can't see the harm in them knowing alternative words, as long as they know the correct ones too.
At the moment DD1 refers to everything as her bottom. I the past she was a bit confused by the term fanny as one of the cat's nicknames is "Fanny cat". When I would say fanny she says "no, not Fizzy" (the actual name of the cat). She seems to understand the term now though.
Will look at getting that book that Dach has suggested.
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Teaching your kids about their body parts
It's so small and inoccent and well, vagina, not even thinking about penis, is such a grown-up word *sigh* I know I have to get over it and teach her because I know how important it is.
This morning I was laying in bed with her and we were talking and "petting" mommies tummy, she turned away and I shifted position and when she looked back, the only bump were my boob, so she slaps me on the boob and says ... baby!!!
"Out the tittee" ... now that is adorable!!!!!!!!
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