Toddlers will delight guests and strangers with their vast knowledge of body part terminology.
Roughly around the time your child was a preening zygote, you and your spouse made a vow to be completely honest with him, no matter what the circumstances. And this honesty extends to enlightenment—especially when your child is young. Which is why teaching young children the proper names of private body parts is a wonderful way to spread truth, expand their vocabulary and impress your friends.
It shows how open and honest you are with your children when your 3-year-old daughter can point to an adult guest and say, “Mommy, I wonder how big her vagina is!”
You’ll also swell with pride when your son grabs his nether region while dining at a restaurant and screams, “My penis is so full it will pop soon!” People at nearby tables will sigh, nod and smile. They’ll also wonder why they didn’t teach their children the same words.
Your Children Can Teach Friends These Enlightened Words
One of the biggest benefits of teaching your young child words like vagina and penis is that he or she will be able to share them with friends like verbal trading cards.
There’s nothing more heartening than a room full of preschoolers running around and saying, “You’re a vagina head! You’re a vagina head!” First, it’s not an easy word for youngsters to say—three syllables that don’t roll off an inexperienced tongue. But with practice and repetition, a chorus of 3- and 4-year-old children uttering “vagina head” will eventually sound as natural and mellifluous as Laurence Olivier reading Shakespeare.
Rule #85: Refuse to Sign Any of Your Child’s School Paperwork
Rule #84: Own Wild Animals As Pets
Rule #83: Teach Your Child to Shoplift
Rule #82: Back-to-School Shop at the County Dump
Rule #81: Use Hand-Me-Down Braces & Retainers
Rule #80: Ban All Forms of Acne Medication
Rule #79: Never Stop for Bathroom Breaks on Family Road Trips
Rule #78: Give Your Baby Plastic Surgery
Rule #77: Raise Your Child in a Barn
Rule #76: Dump Your Kids on Other Parents
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
Throwback to a better time and place: 1990, Kindergarten Cop, the line? “Boys have penises girls have vaginas”…classic.
I love your site. However, I have to disagree about this one. Teaching children the proper names to body parts can greatly reduce cases of molestation. Often times predators use cutesy names to gain access to personal and private space, however children who have been taught to name their private parts are less likely to be led astray. It also allows children to own their bodies because they can name when and where something hurts or has been hurt. Teaching them the proper name also teaches them to not be ashamed so that they can be open with their parents about uncomfortable issues. It has to start young.
http://www.reallybadparentingadvice.com/rule-3-teach-toddlers-the-proper-names-of-private-body-parts/#more-17
Our youngest son was asking about body parts and we explained the whole “boys have outie weenies and girls have innie weenies” thing. They do know the medical terms for their junk and quite a few interesting euphamisms as well. Hey, learn it from us or get it elsewhere, it’s not like they’re never gonna hear it. Right on!
As we have always tried to keep things cool at our house, our kiddo’s have always called their junk by it’s real name. My 12 year old boy, smack in the middle of puberty, is very comfortable with his body parts. So much so, he likes to talk about them in public now. Like when he walks through the living room to ask me if I know what the average penis size is? (My first thought: “flacid or erect?”) But before I have a chance to answer he tells me it’s three inches. (My next thought: “well, that answers my first question.”) Then he lets me know his penis is bigger than that. WAY bigger. And his olives are getting pretty big, too.
Kindergarten Cop – Loved that movie very funny.
Kristina Brook – You obviously don’t get the joke, perhaps you should lurk more.
Mama – heh he I like that.
Bettis – nice first thought …. and next thought. Made me laugh
We foolishly tried to teach our kids the proper names. Somehow or other my son ended up prounouncing ‘vagina’ as ‘dinana’ and ‘dinosaur’ as ‘dinono’ and he thought they meant the same thing. I once gave him a bath with his younger sister and he told me he was looking for her dinosaur. I just about died! The best of intentions. . .
Whenever my girls were little, I started teaching them their body parts, this was around a year old. Not after they had developed full language skills, or were old enough for it to be something new to share with everyone. I just taught them their arms, legs, nose, vulva, feet, buttocks, etc., as they discovered them. Usually from 6-12 months they discover their privates and just like when they found their ears and I said ears, I taught my girls the word “vulva”, it’s easier to say than vagina and is actually what they are touching. Vagina is the internal body part and doesn’t have to be explained to them until later.
SInce they had heard the word vulva, just like nose and eyes, they didn’t feel the need to tell anyone about it whenever they were around other kids just like they didn’t point out that they other kids have eyes and noses.
If you wait until your child is a toddler, they are going to share their new information, they’ve went all of this time with an unnamed or different named body part, now they know what it is and they may want to share it with the world. If they do say something in public, say, “Yes, he is a man and he has a penis.”, or “Yes, she has a vulva because she’s a girl.”, and go one with what you were doing. Within a day or two it will pass as long as no one makes a big deal about it. If you respond by: yelling, laughing, being embarassed and telling them not to talk about that in front of other people, you are giving them signals about their sexuality.
Many people grow up thinking that their sexual organs are somehow shameful or “bad”. It might not seem like a big deal, now. But when they are teenagers or young adults, it can have emotional effects on how they feel about themselves and their bodies.
If you didn’t teach them when they were first learning their other body parts, then, a few days of embarrassment is worth it if it means an emotional healthier child.
@Kristina Brooke: I guess reading isn’t for everyone. Nice job.
I am so glad I found your site it is like a beacon of hilarity in an all too dark and politically correct online parenting world. However, I do think that I would be proud to hear my son call the appropriate person a vagina head and I am glad he knows the correct anatomical names for the human body.
Kids and adults using lame names like ‘flower’ instead of vagina and ‘wee wee’ instead of penis make me cringe, like yeah, I got pregnant because someone stuck their wee wee in my flower… How’s that going to make sense to anyone who has English as a second language?
Cheers – Lui.