What do you do about mummy and daddy games?

[WideWebWitch]

I'm at a friend's house and her 5yo dd and my 7yo ds are playing together happily and quiety upstairs. I've been up and they're playing mummies and daddies but so far, fairly innocently (I overheard 'you've got the Porsche, I've got the Ferrari, wtf? I have a Focus!). In the past they've played looking at each other's bums and we've told them they mustn't. I've just reiterated that bums are private. Would you leave them to it or insist they play within our sight? Friend just went up and they jumped when she walked in, help! TIA.

I( dont know, when I was in infants school i remember showing people my bum and them showing me theirs. it was all very innocent

Me, I'd leave them to it - I think it's a process they need to go through. I was obsessed with such games as a child.....and look at me now!

I think I'd just let them get on with it, keep half an ear out, but don't worry too much.

My son 5 and childminders daughter 6 were doing competitive wees in their garden last week. I tried to be very low-key about it (CM was VERY casual) and to be honest he's stopped talking about it now.

When we were about 7 or 8 my best friend's mum caught us playing doctors and nurses with her little brother (2-3 years younger than us). He was the 'patient'. Her reaction was something along the lines of 'Oh leave X alone, he's far too young to play doctors and nurses. Who wants a biscuit with their juice?' Very low-key indeed, but it stopped us and brought us downstairs to remain in her sight for the rest of the afternoon, which I imagine was what she wanted.

Friend's brother was annoyed though, because he missed his turn at being 'doctor' - not that we had ever had any intention of letting him!

I suspect that if they jumped then they may feel a bit uncomfortable about their game. Genuine and innocent curiousity, but still they probably knwo that they are touching on taboos. Rather than insist that they play within your sight, why not just engineer it, so that they don't feel that they've been stopped on purpose.

also the more you try to stop them, the more they'll want to play.

gosh i french kissed my friend before i started secondary school, but we put scarves round our tongues so it wasnt real. She married one of my cousins friends gosh i find it so embarassing

Thanks everyone. They were mostly playing a very sweet game of pretending to be rabbits and so we left them to it. We were low key, it's ok.