Aibu to think “loola” and “noony” aren’t words interchangeable with genitals?!

[Mightymelon]

And that cutesy words for your genitals help NOBODY AT ALL?

To cut a long story short - I’m friends with a girl, who has seen one of those posts on Facebook, about correctly naming genitals to avoid confusion when kids have uti’s or worse, have been abused.
DF mentioned that in this thread as well as the willy/mini/front bottom names loola and noony being used by children instead of vagina/ vulva and penis, and said she’d never heard of it before. Nor have I?

Firstly I would like to know if IABU to have never heard of these words?

SECONDLY I WOULD LIKE TO URGE YOU WITH EVERY OUNCE OF MY BEING TO TEACH YOUR KIDS APPROPRIATE WORDS FOR THEIR GENITALS SO THAT IF ANYTHING’s WRONG THE ADULTS WHO DEAL WITH IT (TEACHERS/CHILDMINDERS/HCP’s/THE POLICE) CAN DO SO WITH AS LITTLE TRAUMA AND FUSS AS POSSIBLE!!

I worked for the nspcc and devised and delivered much of their training - the advice is to speak openly about our bodies, to teach children to name their bodies appropriately

followed by

It’s no more wrong for my child to talk about piled up pasta (meaning lasagne) or flat high heels (meaning shoes with no buckle) than it is to call her vagina her dinky

Which one is it, Jelly?
Because it sounds like you 'devised and delivered NSPCC training' which you then don't implement with your own DC.

I use them because my DC are adopted and came already using them. Of all the changes they’ve experienced in their young lives, changing vocabulary for parts of their body is an unnecessary one and frankly is the very last thing I’m worried about.

No, I’m not leaving them open to abuse, I’m not making them more vulnerable nor am I shaming them because they don’t use the right words for their genitalia. I’m going at their pace, listening to them, caring for them and teaching them to have control over their body - whatever they want to call it - and teaching them that if they are scared or frightened or asked to do something they don’t want to, they can tell me and I’ll help them. All of which will be more protective and build more resilience than making sure my daughter uses the word vagina.

But please keep telling me how I’m contributing to paedophile culture

I call my daughter's toes her tootsies sometimes and her stomach her tummy. I don't think she's going to grow up mightily confused by this. Do people who always use anatomically correct words not have "pet" names for any body parts?

I'm pretty sure tummy would be in the dictionary maybe even tootsies but not noonoo or moomsie or tinklewinkle or whatever name people have devised

I think having pet names for your genitals is fine as long as they also know the proper name for it too. As a child I referred to my vagina as 'Minnie' and knew that the boys had 'willies' it's like calling a stomach a tummy, we all know what the hell they're talking about!

No, I do implement the whole of the training. The pants rule has several parts the first of which is “privates are private”. Not vaginas are private or penises are private - the NSPCC used a euphemism, which suggests they are more relaxed about that than some posters here. The guidance for parents is to use words and phrases that are familiar to their children, and not to be afraid of using the correct terms for body parts.

The rest of the training looks at children having the ability to say no, to speak to an adult and to not keep secrets. I’m not sure where you think I don’t draw on my professional training with no own DC, I’m just not obsessed with them using anatomically correct language - they know it and can use it if they choose to but in the meantime I’m not going to stress about it.

Kids can call them whatever they like life is way too short to worry about things like that surely? They will know the correct names too.

Kids will call them what they are taught to call them, not whatever they like. My kids wouldn't have a scoobies about some of these pretend names

So do people actually teach their 2 and 3 year olds to use vulva?

I have literally never heard of this in real life, and I have taught a lot of young children.

Fucking hell the absurd and hilarious layers of drip feeding!

jelly if you’d ‘devised and implemented’ the training then you’d have had rhe same access to information that THREE separate trainee CP or SW had mentioned on this thread alone.

Now you don’t Impliment this in your own house because you have adopted children (fair enough). But that’s very different to coming into a situation with mostly non-adoptee parents and reiterating that it’s fine to refer to a ‘foofoo’ or whatever when you MUST know that such language IS contributing to paedophile culture, IS damaging to child and DOES make a child more vulnerable in situations of abuse and harder to interview when abuse is revealed. You are aware of this because you’re a social worker. So why are you stating something different?!

You’re making absolutely no sense, going against policy and for what purpose? To make it less important for people to use correct names despite knowing how important it is?

Moon
My young boys know what a woman’s area is and subsequently know it’s called a vulva, vagina and urethra.

We’ve not covered a clitorus yet as it’s not really relevant and their age.

‘No

My young boys know what a woman’s area is and subsequently know it’s called a vulva, vagina and urethra

And if you had girls, are vulva and vagina the word you would give them to use for everyday use? No nicknames at all? Do you boys only use penis and testicles, never willy and ballsack/baubles or privates or whatever? Genuine question, I'm interested, like I said I have never heard of this in real life.

So do people actually teach their 2 and 3 year olds to use vulva?

My DD (now 11) knows and has always known/used the correct terms

But it's one thing for a child to be aware of the correct terms and another thing for he child to use those times as their every day language.

Like I said I have taught a long time in a 'naice' primary school, and have heard many many terms for girls and boys genitals used by children. I have never heard vulva used by a child of any primary age (or anyone really ever apart from on MN....). To be fair, I have heard penis used by older children, say year 4 and above.

But it's one thing for a child to be aware of the correct terms and another thing for he child to use those times as their every day language

Why is it different? Unless you’re suggesting the correct terms are something to be ashamed of?

I'm not really talking about what's 'right', I'm talking about what I hear in RL.

On these threads there are always loads of people who insist that their children would never use anything other than 'penis' and 'vulva'. Now it might just be the circles I move in, but as I said (loads of times now, sorry!) I'm a teacher of young kids and have never come across a young child who uses those terms as a matter of course. Lots of the children I come across might be aware of those terms, but they certainly don't seem to use them.

Thinking about it, the word that both boys and girls of varying ages probably use the most is 'privates'. Which seems apt to me.

I dont think that what every day word their parents have chosen to give them for their genitals, alone, has any bearing on how vulnerable they are to paedophiles, if parents are otherwise teaching them they their privates are indeed private.

They say their ‘bits’

Am leaning towards fanny with DD as that’s what I call mine day to day

On these threads there are always loads of people who insist that their children would never use anything other than 'penis' and 'vulva'. Now it might just be the circles I move in, but as I said (loads of times now, sorry!) I'm a teacher of young kids and have never come across a young child who uses those terms as a matter of course. Lots of the children I come across might be aware of those terms, but they certainly don't seem to use them.

I agree.

As I said earlier, I have had 40yrs of working with children and the majority of them know the proper terms. But the majority of them (almost all) do not use them in normal everyday speech.

I realise this is a serious subject and I will be making sure my DD does know correct terminology. But, am I the only one who really, really wants to start referring to elbows as bendyboos???

I hate these twee words for little girl genitals.

'Flower' is the worst imo. Why call your vagina the same word as something else that a child may well be naming/pointing out?

A flower is a plant. A vagina is a vagina ffs.

What amuses me about this thread is how so many people must have family-specific (or region-specific) words for girls’ genitals that they assume EVERYONE will understand.

Which they then justify by using words for the same term that are recognised synonyms or derivatives, like tummy/abdomen, tootsies/toes, pasta/lasagne.

Fair enough, teach your daughter to call it a ninny/nonny/boohoo/hoohaa whatever, but in doing so you’re creating a barrier to effective communication, words need to be meaningful to people for them to understand. If your preschooler is articulate confident, persistent and isn’t anxious then silly twee names are less significant as she’ll be able to say, “Miss Jane, my twirlylulu hurts on the inside and outside after Uncle Josh touched it last night” but a 3 year old with speech/language delays who can only say “lulu” has much less of a change.

I get much more worried that on MN so many women don't know the difference between a vagina and a vulva .
Most little girls have no idea where their vaginas are and it is their vulvas that are getting the pet names.

sugarplum but what if the child is very young or has a speech delay and can’t manage a 3 word sentence? They won’t have a chance talking about “oo oo” for Foo foo but “gina” gives them a chance to impart their message. If a child with a speech delay wants a drink “dink” is interpretable, however if parents have taught them that a drink is “milly” they’re going to struggle more.

Also - what do you mean by age and situation-appropriate language?

Because at the moment it seems that pretty much any noun or made up word can be used to describe body parts that already have names. Why is it age-inappropriate not to use twee nicknames?