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

Also "vulva" is a word that's bloody hard for many toddlers etc to actually say, its very easy for sounds like "v" to be mixed up with w or b, and "l" is one which many children cant say clearly until 4 or 5.

[quote IknowwhatIneed]@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.[/quote]
That’s great, thank you.

Its not nonense though. There are lots of words in this thread that I havent heard before like nelly. And when a child discloses something its not always as clear as 'my uncle licked my' in context in a 1:1 situation otherwise safeguarding would be easy.

So i dont get the angst at making it just a teeny bit clearer if possible.

@Tal45

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.

He took her swimming and changed her top.

The reason I use vagina and vulva is because they’re correct, but also because there’s no universal, neutral equivalent.
For penis, we have willy. Everyone knows what it means, it’s not offensive, and it’s not cutesy. A child says his willy hurts, everyone knows what that means.
For vulva and vagina we have rude/vulgar words, or cutesy words (flower, cookie etc) which I absolutely hate. If there was a willy equivalent word, I’d use that.
I don’t have an issue with willy not being the “correct” term, to me it’s a bit like saying belly or tummy, or boobs, so would use a female equivalent. I just don’t think it exists.

I’m a retired doctor, and taught my DDs the correct terms for their anatomy.
I don’t understand what grounds the OP (or anyone) has for objecting to this practice.
What harm do they think it does, for children to have accurate information about their bodies?
What is wrong with removing shame and embarrassment, and facilitating communication for future medical appointments?

I have a boy and a girl so often just use 'bits' as a catch all. However I have used vulva often enough that nobody in the family has any embarrassment over using it. I felt very awkward the first few times, but that only made me more determined because I don't want my daughter to feel awkward when referring to her own body. She should know what everything is called and quite frankly tells me if her vulva is sore (common when you don't wipe properly) and has asked about more specific parts (criteria etc) and i hope that, by answering honestly and unmbarrassedly, she will feel able to keep talking to me as she gets older and her body changes and she needs to pay more attention to her 'bits' than she currently does. Those were the two biggest reasons for me, rather than focusing on the abuse stuff.

It makes sense, however, that a child who has had frank conversations and is obviously used to being open and honest with the adults in their life would be less vulnerable and less likely to become a target of someone with nefarious purposes in mind.

@Babdoc

I’m a retired doctor, and taught my DDs the correct terms for their anatomy. I don’t understand what grounds the OP (or anyone) has for objecting to this practice. What harm do they think it does, for children to have accurate information about their bodies? What is wrong with removing shame and embarrassment, and facilitating communication for future medical appointments?

This. 100%

*criteria should be clitoris. Apparently autocorrect gets embarrassed over body parts also

@HoppingPavlova

Oh dear OP, you do know it’s not really your anus you are wiping don’t you? You are being disingenuous. It’s like when people say they have a stomach pain - it’s a broad term that doesn’t necessarily just cover the stomach and is more likely to pertain to a part of the intestines. I don’t sit there and tell someone they don’t have a stomach pain and please use the word colon etc. Anus is the same, most people wipe poo off the fleshy but of the inner buttocks, they don’t clean their anus. The whole area is commonly referred to as a bottom, in the same vein as stomach covers all areas of the gut for lay people. If in court you can use the term bottom for that area.

I believe you are likely someone who is at odds with using the word vagina/vulva and in an attempt at some form of self-righteousness about this are deliberately being goady.

This.

If my 4 year old can describe what a stegosaurus’ thagomizer is then he sure as hell is able to understand and use the correct anatomical name for genitalia. In our house we know the correct words but also various nicknames. The same as we know toofypegs are teeth.
We disempower our children so much.

My kids recently asked what that bit is called.
Never before has the word anus been sung so much as it has since then 🙄

@DeepaBeesKit

Also "vulva" is a word that's bloody hard for many toddlers etc to actually say, its very easy for sounds like "v" to be mixed up with w or b, and "l" is one which many children cant say clearly until 4 or 5.

Even if they said bulba and pointed down there it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they were saying. But if a toddler said ‘chocolate time’ while holding their bum I would not have a clue they need a poo.

Who doesn't know what willy or fanny or tuppence are?

As someone who wasn’t born in the UK and doesn’t have English as a first language, it took me a long while to realise what those words meant. I knew ‘flower’ - because there’s an equivalent in my native language - but all other variations are regional and I had absolutely no idea what their second meaning was. Nilly-moo like a PP said? What on earth is that? Mimi or tuppence?

If you think how many international staff you can find in schools in big cities like London, and especially nurseries where the majority of staff could be young girls from across Europe who are here for some work experience… How would they know all those words?

In safeguarding training we aren’t given a list of all regional variations of words for body parts to memorise, so it’s very unreasonable to expect everybody to know these words.

I actually learnt ‘flower’ in my own language as an adult, because my parents and teachers had always used the correct words. I had a big surprise when I heard the term in a TV show and someone explained to me what it meant. Very cringy.

The reason I use vagina and vulva is because they’re correct, but also because there’s no universal, neutral equivalent. For penis, we have willy. Everyone knows what it means, it’s not offensive, and it’s not cutesy. A child says his willy hurts, everyone knows what that means.
For vulva and vagina we have rude/vulgar words, or cutesy words (flower, cookie etc) which I absolutely hate. If there was a willy equivalent word, I’d use that.

Yes, I agree with this. I only have sons and we use penis and willy fairly interchangeably. If I had a daughter I would definitely use the anatomically correct words because I don’t think there is an equivalent to ‘willy’ - as you say it’s either vulgar words or twee little euphemisms that perpetuate shame and embarrassment around female body parts and/or aren’t universally understood (I haven’t heard many of the euphemisms on this thread. I was encouraged to call mine my ‘la-la’ when I was a kid which hasn’t come up yet.)

And as several posters have said - we can argue about whether using anatomically correct words actually helps to prevent/detect child abuse, but there’s absolutely no harm in doing it. If something MIGHT help prevent or detect child abuse and has no negative side effects whatsoever, then it’s a good thing.

The fact that so many adults on here feel uncomfortable using terms like vulva and penis is exactly why we need to normalise it. Nothing wrong with jokingly referring to it as your fajita or whatever but if you can’t bring yourself to say the anatomical words then you have issues.

Who doesn't know what willy or fanny or tuppence are?

I know what a willy is, and would use that for penis.
Fanny to me is a word that borders on rude, I don’t know if that’s maybe a regional thing.
Tuppence I’ve never heard used.

Who is wiping their bum cheeks after using the toilet?! We need an answer!

@miltonj I would never call a horse a GiGi I would have to work back from gambling to placing a bet on a horse race to horse so would need a visual to make the leap if it's used by a child.

The sound association Brum Brum covers car (speed variation needed) tractor (tap tap rhythm), lorry (drop in pitch).

In our family Nellie is an elephant, always in bed and being snuggled and loved.

I presume the tuppence originates from spending "old" money to access a public toilet block.

From this thread and the other there would appear to be a number of posters who would convey their discomfort to a child when vulva or anus is used.

The OP stated the thread to slag off parents because the childhood glee of being able to fit uranus in a conversation never gets old.

Context matters lexical gaps appear around female reproductive parts more that male's. How many posters are still using the word "sex of their baby", why not?
How many call their male partners "a vagina" as an insult or give out about "vagina behaviours".
How many male genital insults have become unisex insults.

@iamtheoneandonlyyy

My kids recently asked what that bit is called. Never before has the word anus been sung so much as it has since then 🙄

😀 Tell them the joke about the disappointing visit to the zoo which had no animals except for a single dog....

@Tal45 then you're contributing to allowing child sex abuse to continue if you think it's "nonsense".

We had this conversation last night over dinner 🤭. My kids call their privates a sweet nickname but I’ve also made sure my older child knows the proper term for it. My youngest was being silly and I asked if he knew what the correct term was for it, he didn’t, so we all sat around eating dinner saying the word Penis over and over again. My five year old thought it was hilarious.

We haven’t discussed anus though 🥴

@Tal45

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.

Well I'm a native English speaker, not from UK but with an English parent, well read, and have never heard 'tuppence' used in that context.

A pp made a great point that your child's teacher/childminder etc may also not be English and won't know any of the cringeworthy nicknames used on this thread and the other thread. Most of them sound like the names of Teletubbies to me!

[quote JimLaheysWhiskeyBottle]@miltonj it’s a good question, not goady at all.
One of the positives is so that if a young child discloses to you, there can be no confusion. The example someone gave earlier (flower) is quite common, however abusers are clever and can give names to body parts that might be unfamiliar.
For example we were told a case on our safeguarding training where a very young child referrred to a family member touching her «purse». Adults involver didn’t take it seriously at first, comments like «don’t play with it, tell them to stop, put it back in the cupboard» etc She didn’t know the correct term, so the adults didn’t realise quickly enough.[/quote]
But even this example refers to it after the fact. How does a child knowing it's called a vulva lessen their chances of being abused?

It lessens the chance of the abuse continuing as the child is able to alert professionals as to what is happening and they are able to act.