You know what Bogdan said today? He said “buci”! (butt cheeks) And then she giggled, and chuckled some more. Every day I learn new ways to call the private parts from J. I think every kid proudly shares how his family calls them.
I just read this good book translated in Romanian, written by a Canadian health ed: Meg Hickling: “what do we tell kids and adolescents about sex”. The last part tried to be too politically correct and thus incomplete, in my opinion. “Everyone is free to choose whatever they want to do or to practice” is dangerous territory. What about propriety and boundaries and long term health.
same info in Romanian by age category
I watched J carefully as we would talk about these things, to see if she would betray any fear or concern, but no, she finds everything pretty funny and magical. Where do babies come from. How does adoption fits in. How our bodies transform over time. The scientific names for the private parts. She listened carefully, repeated after me and then asked if she can still call the private parts the childlike way. Sure. The bottom line is though, that kids who know whats what they are less likely to be abused. The age group 2-4 some important conversations need to be started, and parents need to learn to be available to answer the technical questions kids ask.
Then comes the age group 5-8 and things get more complicated, especially because parents are so naive about the dangers of unfiltered information bombarding our kids.
Another great article in romanian
But in the age of internet access everywhere, leaving our technology unsupervised, is irresponsible. Jackie plays so nicely with her dolls and toys unsupervised, but the tablet on which she plays some educational games is offline. YouTube is not trustworthy. One bit. She was watching kids cartoons at my parents and youtube took her to a birthing video. Her cousin called out for help saying that J is watching “stupid things”. They told me about it, but my heart sunk. My mom was right there, in the room. How is this possible to let their innocent minds to be scarred.
Telling our kids to avert their eyes, so they don’t take in scary images, even when things should otherwise be pretty safe. The standard for PG is pretty loose. Each Parent needs to actively asses their boundaries for protection and Guidance.
We must realize that things are much more different than back in our days. And yet, we dodged even in our days, a few crazy bullets. In junior high a colleague of mine brought to school porn playing cards. He wanted to show it to anyone willing to see. I thought it was so gross. A glance was enough to scare and scar me. Then the brother of one of my colleagues, who was a football player, would always whistle the girls in middle school from his window. Him hiding half way in his apartment calling girls over, to this day it creeps me out. I never told my parents about these things, nor did I ask questions. Nothing ever happened to me, but yucky danger lurked everywhere.
And this is just the beginning… during adolescence, helping our kids to set strong standards and personal boundaries is essential I think. I was lucky enough to surround myself with healthy adults who cared, adults who were willing to talk about difficult topics and addressed questions that we didn’t even know to ask yet. It was my christian church community, to which I am eternally grateful.