4 year old won't stop touching her bum

[Helphelpx]

My four year old won't stop touching her front bum. It's all the time. It's also very obvious. She does it in the living room, the car, outside playing constantly. It's very obvious and she says it feels nice.

I have tried every way to approach this. Tell her not to do it. Tell her it'll put germs on her hands. Tell her to do it in her bedroom but not in front of other people. Tell her it's ok she can touch her own privates but only in private. Tell her other people do not touch their bums in front of other people. Tell her other people will not like it. I've also told her people will not want to spend time in her company if she is doing this and it's disgusting. Tried to put consequences in place. Nothing works at all. I was very cross with her a few times about it. Told her others will not play with her if they see her constantly doing this. I know that is not the best approach but I'm at my wits end.

Please any advice, similar parenting experience or even book recommendations appreciated!

But she is creating real problems. Even the one she is posting about.

@BunnyLake

The word Fanny is incredibly crude, I would never have allowed my daughters to use it, just as I wasn't, and none of my friends were either.

It's a horrible word, and I'd be horrified to hear a young child saying it.

@Helphelpx There is an overload of criticising parents and children these days and it creates a lot of societal pressure on parents. I get why you are concerned about your dd touching her private parts in public, even though it is perfectly normal behaviour for that age.

Unfortunately, I do think the societal expectations on parents to be almost perfect can interfere with how we choose to parent our children. And we can become anxious which can affect the way we respond to our children.

Here is a couple of paragraphs from an article that you might find helpful for the issue you came on here to ask about. (And no, I am not going to join in the ranks of picking on you for the terminology you choose to use and I am not going to dictate that you should use vulva instead of vagina either). I taught my daughter vagina and it was helpful when she could tell me that her vagina hurt. And no it was not her vulva that was hurting, the pain was in her vagina. The doctor gave me some useful information about Vulvovaginitis.

And for those being pedantic about using vulva instead of vagina, have you forgotten labia majora (outside lips of the vagina)? For the sake of simplicity, I don’t think it’s wrong to use one word for the vaginal area. (And from this medical fact sheet I have from the doctor about Vulvovaginitis it does refer to vaginal area).

The title of the article refers to teaching proper names for body parts, however the paragraphs I copied and pasted are about how normal it is for young children to touch themselves and suggested way to respond.

https://amp.abc.net.au/article/11708774

Children will touch their own genitals — it's self-soothing, like thumb-sucking. It's not something they should be ashamed of."

She says it's normal developmental behaviour for under-fives to touch and expose themselves (even in public), so just react calmly and positively when this happens.
"What you should not say is anything like 'That's dirty'," Ms Hamilton says.
Ms Hamilton suggests saying something like this if your child touches or exposes their private parts in public:

"It's OK to touch your private body parts but, remember, private parts are just for you. We don't do that in front of other people."

I never have either, why would I and to whom? But then I have sons not daughters. I’d only talk about it to a doctor if I had a medical problem. I never had random conversations with people about female genitalia. I don’t see why that’s unusual.

I'm a child of the 70s - it was simply called "down below" 😅

That’s the problem though, it irritated you so you typed out a massively hyperbolic response rather than a constructive one. No way OP is going to think ‘wow Snugglemonkey raised some excellent points’. So your post was effectively pointless.

First please don't call it her bum! Secondly I'd just keep telling her not to do it in public and it'll sink in eventually.

Mine did this when she had threadworms.

I’d give her some Ovex just to be sure.