No idea how to approach this, so Mumsnet seems like the best place to ask for advice!
Just-turned-3 year old DS is displaying behaviour that I find worrying. No idea of it's normal or not - never had anything like this with older DD.
On two occassions now, we have caught him playing "doctors" with his same-aged cousin, involving looking under clothes (including private parts, but not totally sure). Our son instigates this game. SIL says nephew is fine and he hasnt reported anything untoward, thankfulky.
Each time, DS has firmly been told that it's not OK to touch or ask to see anyone else's private parts, and not to lift clothing. We've always taught and modelled to both our children about boundaries and consent, but he's obviously still very young so I don't know how much he really understands.
He also spends a great deal of time undressing and looking at DD's barbies. I haven't told him off about this, but I have asked him what he's up to and why he's taking their clothes off - he doesn't answer!
I know that this is probably, in itself, perfectly normal and innocent childish curiosity BUT:
He's really sneaky about it. If we walk into a room while he's undressing barbies, he tells us to go away and gets upset or angry. He's shown the same behaviour when playing doctors with his cousin (a relationship which I now feel I have to vigilently supervise). He clearly knows he shouldn't be doing it and he tries to hide what he' doing - it's this aspect that I'm finding most alarming.
Is this typical or are we right to be worried? How should we handle it??
He's a sweet boy - a bit of a handful, and a totally different child to parent than our eldest, but I think he's generally a pretty classic three year old!