Is this normal/exploration?!!!!!!

[ede]

My ds is a well adjusted boy, happy & sociable but he has a best friend who has just introduced him to the bums and willies game!! intially they just rubbed tummy's then progressed to showing each other there willies and bums and now have started pulling and toucing each other! I dont feel comfortable with this,they seem to know it is wrong from they way they re-act if i walk in on them. Is this normal are they just exploring and natural curiosty or at 3.5 yrs is this a step to far, any advise on how to discourage this and am i overreacting?

Bit of a tough one, if you think it is wrong then i think you shoud discourage it, i dont know what i would do, they are probobly just curios and its proobly nnothing to worry about, im sure they will get bored of the game soon and find somthing else to do.

Is it worth having a talk about which parts of his body are private and should only be touched by him? I wouldn't make a big deal of it.

very difficult - I too think it's probably just natural and my instinct is that if it is to be discouraged it has to be done in a very sensitive way - ie not to give the impression that there is anything wrong with their bodies, or that they have been "bad", perhaps just gently introducing them to the idea of "privacy". One thing I would say - and wait to see what other mners say - it might be worth mentioning it to the friend's parent. Depends on how well you know them etc but it could be difficult if the other parent doesn't agree with you that it's natural. perhaps best to have a dicussion and - hopefully- united approach, coz some people can be very difficult about this kind of thing.

I used to play a game when I was at infant school whereby me and other girl friends would go into toilet cubicles and strip naked giving a running commentary of what we were taking off as we went. We didn't show each other our bodies though and I have never had any lesbian tendencies. I don't know that what your son is doing is so bad - it sounds like the same sort of thing I did - but I agree with daisy in that I would have a gentle talk to him about which parts of his body he really should keep to himself.

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Thanks for all the advice i duplicated discussion title (by mistake, first time on chat), so have responded more on second title. Good to hear everyones opinion and feel alot more relaxed about the situation seems to be a lot more common than i realised. I spoke to ds friend mum straight away about it as I believe it is best to be open about thease things and to be able to talk. she also had few concerns and as both first time parents and experiencing this for the first time it was good to be able to chat to each other about our concerns. we have decided to keep an eye on things but try not to make to much of an issue and gently discourage the behaviour. So glad she had the same attitude,! as thease subjects can be quite hard to approach and everyone will always feel protective and defensive of their own children and their behaviour. I guess all children naturally go through thease stages it is just a shock it happens so young but sounds like something they will grow out of, although do boys ever grow out of obsessions with their bits, I am not sure!!!