I didn't know. I'd always planned to use the correct terms with my kids: elbow, nose, penis, knee, vagina, eye, etc.
I called my sister and she said her four-year-old calls all privates "bum" so no help. Finally yahoo answers solved the question. There were a lot of odd suggestions, but "wee wee" for girls seemed to be the most common term.
But it is a pet peeve of mine to refer to body parts with fake nonsense words. Until today I didn't think it would be necessary to use these pee pee wee wee words as a parent. But maybe I'm the idiot. In my health professional mind, no big deal for kids to know and use the correct anatomical terminology. But then I don't want my kids to end up being the kid on Kindergarten Cop--you know, the son of a gynecologist. So experienced moms, can you get by teaching your kids the correct terms without embarrassment? From reading peoples' answers on Yahoo Answers, there are far more embarrassing terms people are teaching their kids than "vagina".
Is this post TMI? Maybe it will be a temporary post.
5 comments:
personally, I think you have to consider what is age appropriate for your kids. I am afraid if I taught my two year old son the word "penis" right now he would just repeat it like a machine gun. I would say when kids are old enough to potty train, or when they go to pre-school, it would become more appropriate to refer to their anatomy with the correct terms.
sorry, I don't know if that is what you were looking for, but that is my two cents!
I agree, do what you think is best. But I will say, we always knew our privates were a vagnia - but we just called them "privates" because we knew some people thought vagnia and penis were bad words. (I use at least one of them daily at work)
I don't think it's TMI. I definitely plan on teaching Ellie (and Cade) the proper terms, but I think I will wait until they have some sort of idea of when and when not to use them. Ellie right now would be talking to every one in the grocery store about it right now, so we just call it bum--front bum and back bottom if I need to be specific. I think she's close to being 'mature' enough to know correct terms, but I just want to make sure she won't go asking everyone she meets if they have a penis or a vagina.
We just use the general term 'privates' for now. I do plan on teaching the correct anatomical terms. And, I hope to be a parent my children can come to to talk about the 'other' terms so we can have a conversation why the 'other' terms are inappropriate.
We go with crotch. Because you don't pee from your vagina. I don't think we even need to cover that terminology until it's more pertinent to them. As for penis... hey, he's 4 days old. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
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