Those of you who insist on anatomically correctly named body parts...

[canihaveacoffeeplease]

Do you insist on your children calling their bum their anus too?

'Don't forget to wipe your anus darling'

'Sweetie, did you flush and wipe your anus?'

If not why not? Just wondering

@Hoesbeforebroes

I think you're being disingenuous OP. There are lots of ways to name various body parts - e.g. those in common use, the proper medical terms, and the nicknames.

There were plenty of nicknames in use when my kids were little BUT they knew the everyday word too. They knew their bonce is their head and their schnoz is their nose and their toothypegs are their teeth!

That's quite different from telling a girl her genitals are called a 'flower' (vomit) and completely avoiding use of the real term, because you're feeling all icky about it.

As was explained (with references) in the other thread, being uncomfortable with sex and body talk and shrouding the subject in mystery is a barrier to keeping kids safe.

Good points, well made hoesbeforebroes!

@miltonj we are all born nonverbal.
If we can see, as babies we learn to read facial expressions, body language, words and tone of voice. Children learn language skills around truth or lies, secrets or tell. They learn that some body parts need to be always covered in public but not why.
Children also learn not to yell Poo/Shit/Fuck etc at the top of their lungs because they have figured out they are "bad" words. They don't necessarily know why they are bad, just that some words are not "public" words.
If they learn that some words are cringe inducing from a parent they are a little easier to persuade to keep the secret of being abused from that parent. So it becomes barrier to reporting within the family as saying the words themselves is a source of anxiety.
Parents being matter a fact about the terms help allow a child to identify individual body parts without stigma or social taboos. If a patent is having a general conversation about how was your day, saying X who is liked by the child was talking about the child's anus is not a taboo report.
Children are who are comfortable with a word will say all sorts of things as they have not learned the social filter around the word. That makes disclosure to other adults easier too.
Using the correct term removes the social anxiety around the word.

@Yellow85 those stories used to be included in child protection training to impress on adult the importance of listening to children. Sad as it may be, abusers have a million different ways to stop children talking about abuse, and all the anatomically correct language in the world won’t stop that happening. It might make it easier for adults to hear if a child does disclose, but that’s about adults not listening or showing an interest in what kids are saying. By the second or third time of “daddy puts pennies in my purse” the hope would be that by showing genuine interest in what the child is saying (that’s a lot of pennies, where do you keep your purse, does mummy give you pennies too) they’d have worked out something was untoward.

I have no issue with children being taught correct terms, my kids use both, but it’s not the only, or indeed best way to keep children safe.

And having written and delivered more of this type of training than I care to think about, the stories are made up as a way of illustrating the point, not actual case examples, not least to protect the privacy and dignity of children in such a position.

What most people are talking about is that first conversation, maybe with a teacher or a friend, that can trigger concerns being raised. If the person having that conversation thinks the child is talking about an actual cookie for example, it may never get as far as a social worker.

And if the adult showed interest and talked to the child instead of “oh don’t worry about that” or “yuck that’s not kind”, the same result would ensue. It’s an older report now but the NSPCC did a good piece of work exploring the barriers to disclosure for children and young people, who had tried to disclose numerous times before anyone too action. Not being listened to was a key theme running through the report, not knowing anatomical names for body parts didn’t come up once, oddly enough.

Depends who I’m talking to….isn’t that kind of obvious ?
If it’s a GP I might say ‘vulva’, my mum friends I’d probably say fanny or vagina or privates.

@AliceTheCamelHasFiveHumps

My 2yo uses vulva. For her own protection. I sit through child protection training.

If she can tell you that someone touched her vulva, there's no confusion over what was touched.

And that's great but I'm sure if she told someone that someone touched her vagina, there wouldn't be any confusion either...

@IknowwhatIneed

What most people are talking about is that first conversation, maybe with a teacher or a friend, that can trigger concerns being raised. If the person having that conversation thinks the child is talking about an actual cookie for example, it may never get as far as a social worker.

And if the adult showed interest and talked to the child instead of “oh don’t worry about that” or “yuck that’s not kind”, the same result would ensue. It’s an older report now but the NSPCC did a good piece of work exploring the barriers to disclosure for children and young people, who had tried to disclose numerous times before anyone too action. Not being listened to was a key theme running through the report, not knowing anatomical names for body parts didn’t come up once, oddly enough.

I’d be interested to read that report if you have a link.

I can’t really see why we can’t aim to listen better to children and use anatomically correct language for body parts. They’re not mutually exclusive.

OP you're being a dick (or whatever body part you wish to name).

If a child says Uncle John touched my bum, there's a good chance we'd know what that meant.

If they say Uncle John touched my flower (or other ridiculous word for a body part) instead of vagina, that's where abuse can be hidden.

Only the adults seem to be embarrassed about naming body parts, the child just accepts it as another word. As a society we really need to stop helping peadophiles hide their crimes against children by giving them code words.

The sickos who abused me as a child gave their penis and my vagina a "friendly" name, so if anything was overheard or said, it didn't alert anyone who could have stopped the abuse. It went on for years...

@miltonj

Not being goady like at all, but I've never understood how using anatomically correct names for genitals protect children from sexual abuse. Could somebody explain please? I understand the argument of it makes it easier to explain if they itch or are in pain but I don't understand the abuse element.

I worked in a nursery. I had a little girl tell me that she didn’t like it when her uncle touched her flower. It took a lot more conversation to find out that she was being abused. If she had said vagina or vulva then it would have been much quicker. If a term like mini is used then it’s easy to brush off the concerns and abuse can be missed.

With bum or bottom there is no ambiguity. Even willy is fairly universally recognised. But there is no consistent term across the country for vulva.

[quote SolasAnla]@miltonj we are all born nonverbal.
If we can see, as babies we learn to read facial expressions, body language, words and tone of voice. Children learn language skills around truth or lies, secrets or tell. They learn that some body parts need to be always covered in public but not why.
Children also learn not to yell Poo/Shit/Fuck etc at the top of their lungs because they have figured out they are "bad" words. They don't necessarily know why they are bad, just that some words are not "public" words.
If they learn that some words are cringe inducing from a parent they are a little easier to persuade to keep the secret of being abused from that parent. So it becomes barrier to reporting within the family as saying the words themselves is a source of anxiety.
Parents being matter a fact about the terms help allow a child to identify individual body parts without stigma or social taboos. If a patent is having a general conversation about how was your day, saying X who is liked by the child was talking about the child's anus is not a taboo report.
Children are who are comfortable with a word will say all sorts of things as they have not learned the social filter around the word. That makes disclosure to other adults easier too.
Using the correct term removes the social anxiety around the word.[/quote]
Thank you. I get all that, but I don't think the majority of people are embarrassed to say vagina or penis to their kids, but rather use the colloquial terms because that's what we do as parents. Ie Gi Gi for horse, brum brum for car. And I certainly arnt saying toothie pegs because I'm embarrassed to say teeth! I do agree that purse, cookie snd flower are dangerous though, I was thinking more about Willy and nelly noo. Willy is obvious and nelly, mini, Mary etc can be worked out in context and they're easy for little kids to say and remember. I do agree with previous poster though that there is a lexical gap there, Willy being a term that everyone knows, whereas the equivalent for vagina/vulva doesn't exist (other than vulgar , rude ones inappropriate for kids).

Actually Ive just googled it myself and on a page the NSPCC website which was updated in September 2021, they talk about the importance of adults listening to children and responding appropriately, but also refer to their PANTS resources that, amongst other things, help children name their body parts and know which ones should be private.

So it looks like the NSPCC see the importance both, which is encouraging.

@Warmduscher it can be found here

learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2013/no-one-noticed-no-one-heard

And I agree, we should be doing both, but the focus always seems to be on children making it easier for adults to hear them, rather than on adults being better at listening, being curious and interested in the child’s world. Language around body parts seems to have become this magic bullet to protect children, when really it’s a tiny part of a much bigger process.

My daughter generally uses the terms vagina and bum, but she knows what the Vulva and anus is, meaning if she’s in pain I can know where immediately and if, god forbid, anyone were to ever touch her inappropriately she’d be able to voice it exactly without feeling shame, she’s confident talking about every part of her body and knows if someone says you shouldn’t say something, that’s exactly when mummy needs to know straight away. It’s not funny and you’re making yourself look like a bit of a dick honestly op.

I don't think it's dickish.
It invites discussion of an important issue

It’s worth reading the original report, the updated one of course includes research from recent NSPCC initiatives eg PANTS etc, but the original report is purely the accounts of survivors, which is pretty powerful.

@miltonj

Not being goady like at all, but I've never understood how using anatomically correct names for genitals protect children from sexual abuse. Could somebody explain please? I understand the argument of it makes it easier to explain if they itch or are in pain but I don't understand the abuse element.

Ok so I’ll tell you a conversation that occured recently at my nursery where I had no choice but to contact mum (they were seperated). Had she not picked up and told me they they refer to her nipples as flowers I would have gone straight to SS. As it is we’re making notes re anything unusual she might say which is a lot as she’s 3!

Daddy touched me down there

Where darling?

My flower

Oh was he changing your nappy?

No.

'Sweetie, did you flush and wipe your anus?'

You are wiping your bum in a very odd manner.

You're not funny or clever.

Am I the only one reading this thinking, what the heck are people wiping when they do a no.2?! What do you mean you wipe your whole bum?! The cheeks??

I don't know why she'd say coins in her purse if she was being abused, even if she'd been taught her vagina/vulva was called a purse

Because her abuser probably refereed to his hands/penis as coins, if he knew the little girl called her vagina a purse?

@Starfish1021

Jesus you do know why people ‘insist’ on correctly naming body parts? To protect them from abuse. It’s not some ‘fad’ as you seem to be suggesting.

This

To me the whole abuse thing is nonsense. Unless you're using some very bizarre nickname then teachers are going to know the pet names for genitals as well as anyone else. Who doesn't know what willy or fanny or tuppence are? Also if a child said 'Uncle X was touching my....' there is so much work done on safeguarding that any teacher would immediately be on high alert whatever word was put in after that.

Ok so I’ll tell you a conversation that occured recently at my nursery where I had no choice but to contact mum (they were seperated). Had she not picked up and told me they they refer to her nipples as flowers I would have gone straight to SS. As it is we’re making notes re anything unusual she might say which is a lot as she’s 3!

Daddy touched me down there

Where darling?

My flower

Oh was he changing your nappy?

No.

Why was her dad touching her nipples? This all sounds very weird to me. I really don't think a call to SS would be amiss unless there's more you've not said.

I've never heard it called tuppence, that is why.

I use the term "crotch" with my daughter. It would be clear from that term which part of the body is being talked about (between the legs).

If a child referred to someone touching their crotch, you'd ask more questions and would quickly get to the info you needed.