I’ve had this post zooming around in my head for a while (the title alone just smacks of something that’s been over-thought, right?!) but even now I’m still not sure about what I mean to write.
Sausage is going through a new stage in her development. She seems to have…’discovered herself’. Or, more accurately, discovered what’s inside her knickers. She seems to have developed a…I won’t say fixation…but certainly a liking for exploring her body. Now, I’m sure all of you really cool, together, knowledgeable parents out there are reading this whilst knocking back a Pimms and feeling all superior about my inability to adequately deal with this situation, but I am stumped.
The problem I have is this; I know what she’s doing is perfectly normal. It’s natural, it’s not some nasty habit, it’s just what kids do. But I tend to make a joke of things, or be a bit too forthright. Which means when I see her doing it, saying “Stop diddling your middle!” is probably not the best way to handle it. For all of my good intentions and wishes to be a good mother, I seem to just be an insensitive, ill-prepared bulldozer.
I’ve read various articles on the subject and lots of them say that you should talk to your child about what they’re doing, even suggest a private place for them to explore themselves. Am I the only one who reads this and thinks “WHAT THE F*&K?!”. I cannot suggest to my almost-4 year old that she take herself off to the bedroom to explore her anatomy. That’s weird, isn’t it?
As I said, I know what she’s doing is a normal stage of her development, and I’m sure she’ll grow out of it as quickly as she grew into it, but in the meantime I’m uncomfortable, unprepared and a little bit daunted by the situation. I’m really hoping someone will comment and tell me to just ignore it until it goes away. That’s still good parenting, right?!
I never had this with Tops, but BB likes to have a Tug. I’ve explained to him that I don’t really want to see him doing it so if he could possibly manage to keep it to his room I would be grateful. Then I just ignored it… so go ahead and deal with it by ignoring it lol.
Just don’t watch The Tweenies with her, when she see’s that Bella is always at it on TV she’ll never stop doing it in front of company!
Had this with my son not daughter. Told him there were things we didn’t do in public and this was one. Ignored it and he stopped doing it in front of me – no idea what he does in private!
The Boy does this regularly (he’s 7), and I’m the same as you – I really don’t know how to deal with it. I *want* to say “there’s nothing wrong with it but don’t do it in public” but what I am thinking is “what the actual f*@k are you doing, ew, stop it!”. I have to admit I went down the ignoring route too!
By the way, I can’t subscribe to your RSS feed, it just seems to redirect me back to your site (probably caused by my laptop). What’s your feedburner address and I’ll add it manually? Thank you
LOL! Glad it’s not just me!
Thanks for the heads up about the RSS feed, been having issues with it since I migrated my URL, I may have to get Husband on the case!