What name do you use with your child for their genitals?

[Flappergirl86]

I was raised to call them Willies or Fannies. Though I was recently informed that 'fanny' is more of a swear word. 'Vagina' feels weird to teach a kid but I also dont wanna be really twee and call it something that implies its shameful or not what it is! (Ie privates or tuppance).
What words(s) do other mums use so their daughters are clear on what their anatomy is called? Should I just get over myself and call it a vagina?

For the record, I call my own various words I wouldn't want my daughter to repeat! Ha!

I think it's important because if she ever had an issue down there or, God Forbid, anything were to happen to her, she'd be able to communicate it to me or another grown up without anything being lost in translation or misconstrued. Shes only 2 and a bit.

I work with sexual assault victims and deal every day with court cases and police investigations falling apart because of children using "flower" or "button" or whatever.

I call them penis, scrotum, and anus generally. I think I probably say "bottom" if referring to the whole area ("now you have a lovely clean bottom"). DS is only 19mo though, so he just calls it his ee-iss or eenss. He has no interest in his scrotum or anus at the moment.

It's all so cringe

Willy
Tail
Winky

I’ve never known anyone use the proper names at all when so small. I don’t even refer to my own as my vulva or vagina unless I was at the doctors. And it’s not a shame thing or anything like that - I just never have!

Despite my best efforts to teach and use correct anatomical terms with my kids they now both call their private parts their 'weiner', yes even the girl . Thanks school friends!

Does your DH use the term vulva then in conversation with you?!

To be fair it doesn't really come up in conversation often. And as a family we do have 'nicknames' but none of us, dh included, are afraid to use the correct terminology as required.

Bloody hell that's more of a response than I was expecting! Thanks! I'll run with 'willy and fanny' for now and see what she comes up with herself.

Agree that 'flower' is awful though. And vulva/vagina I think will be saved for the docs for now.

Correct terminology here also. Can't see the point in teaching them it's one word then another

We say:

Vulva for the vulva (Exterior)
Vagina for the vagina (interior)
Penis for the penis
Testicles for the testicles.

It really isn’t hard.

Use the correct names. Why not?

Don't understand posters saying the correct words are too adult.

Do you not use the correct terms for feet, hands and knees too?
Why are you clouding your thoughts with adult sexual guilt?

Theres nothing overtly sexual about the words penis and vulva.

I have only boys. I started off using winnie. Then some friends of theirs, whose family only use the correct terms, told them penis. I get that it’s the right thing to do to call them the correct names so we now use penis and winkie interchangeably.

My family were appalled that my kids knew the word penis!

Haven’t got to talking about vulvas yet.

@Divgirl2

I work with sexual assault victims and deal every day with court cases and police investigations falling apart because of children using "flower" or "button" or whatever.

A genuine question - why is this the case? I don’t really understand how the use of this terminology causes a case to collapse. Don’t the investigators just clarify exactly what children mean by those terms?

Winky 😂🤦‍♀️

Tail and tuppence 😂 They know the real terms but these are the words we use for normal, everyday conversation.

Don’t the investigators just clarify exactly what children mean by those terms?

I'd like to know this too. Don't they have dolls for them to point at, or is that just on TV?

Willies and fannies here.

I work in this field too, and there are lots of reasons why not using the proper terms causes problems. Children have to talk about what's happened to them several times, they might tell a teacher initially, but then have to speak to police/ social workers who they won't know. It's obviously a very difficult thing for children to talk about anyway, and they usually find it very hard to do so. This is made harder if they don't have the language to properly explain/ if they feel the adults don't understand what they mean (which can make them clam up). Children who have been sexually abused usually feel a great deal of shame. Children often don't give a clear account because of their age and the trauma they've been through. This then leads the perpetrator to be able to accuse the child of lying, even more so when the terms might be unclear. As someone already said here earlier, claiming they just touched a flower the child was holding etc.

I appreciate all the comments about disclosure of abuse and terminology. It clearly is important children know the correct terms.

However, isn’t it okay to know the correct terms and to be told we use them when with a doctor or at school when learning about bodies, or if we need to talk about our bodies with other adults, but at home, having an informal term is also acceptable and fine.

Why does it have to be either/or? Why can’t it be both, as long as children do learn the proper terms too?

I know the proper terms and use them at the Doctors, but use informal language with DH, or on the rare occasion it might come up with friends etc. Body parts are exactly the long of areas where we have slang terms and it strikes me as fine that we and children can have those.....alongside the proper names.

Penis but it has the nickname tiddle and the hose in public my issues obviously but I feel weird about telling my son to point his penis at the toilet it seems friendlier to say watch where your pointing your hose fireman sam 🤷‍♀️

The thing about having two terms, but in practice only ever using one of them, is that (1) children are liable to forget the real terminology if they hardly ever actually hear or use it, and (2) never using it in comfortable, relaxed, ‘normal’ contexts just reinforces the idea that the actual terminology is somehow unnatural, awkward or difficult.

Foo foo and willy

And I can provide an example from home! Yesterday I was talking with dd (9) while she had a bath and, prompted by this thread, I asked her if she could still remember the names of her own private body parts even though we mostly just say ‘bits’. And she couldn’t. But she could remember that her brother’s was called a penis. Oh dear.

So we went over it again. It was a good conversation but I really felt like we’d let her down! As I said earlier here, I thought both dc knew the words - but clearly they don’t, because we don’t actually mention them much. And dd’s of an age when some girls start their periods fgs (which we have actually talked about a fair bit).

Anyway we’re all caught up now, and I need to pick up a body book for her that goes into more depth than the ones she’s had since she was tiny.

The most mortifying bit for me (in the context of this thread - not that I let on to DD) was that when she was trying to remember vulva and vagina, and kind of racking her memory, she said, ‘Ummm ... Flower?’ Because that is what one of her friends calls it.

Willy

We've always said willy or noonie.

But made sure from school age that DC know the real terms are vulva and penis if talking to a Doctor/Teacher/other adult.

@NcNcNcNcNcNcNc

"Theres nothing overtly sexual about the words penis and vulva."

Spot on.

I'd go as far as to say there's few words less sexual than penis or vulva! Ironically it's during sex that DH and I don't use the correct terminology!