Body positive book for toddlers!

[WomanBornNotWorn]

Great idea - helping small children

mobile.twitter.com/Transgendertrd/status/1199056010520023040

I'm sure it's already been mentioned but the author of this book has taught children with disabilities for many years as well as having won awards for her books of poetry for children

I suspect her insight into what messages children with disabilities can benefit from hearing vastly outweighs the insight of any random message board poster, no matter how insistently long winded, repetitious, tedious, whiny, redundant and repetitious that poster is.

Really? So someone who has worked with people with disabilities has a better insight into what they need then a person with a disability? That's a bit patriarchal don't you think? "I know what you need better than you do"?

The book not for you. It's for 3-6 year olds.

If you are looking for a book for older adults with chronic and deteriorating health conditions, and how to manage that, then this isn't a book you'd choose.

I say again, this is a book for children to help them love themselves and look after their bodies.

(rather than the 40-odd other books for children which tell them that their healthy body is wrong because it doesn't match their personality, so they should make it unhealthy, giving themselves lifelong serious complications, while pursuing the impossible. I'm interested, zebra, did you spend this long complaining about any of those books? Or is it just this one which has you vexed?)

Read the book, zebras.

Until you do, all you’re doing is commenting on people’s posts on this thread.

The book '10,000 Dresses' is sexist and homophobic. This is taught in schools despite being damaging.

I haven't heard about or read this book either, but if it's as you say, then I don't agree with that being in schools either.

I can't get my head around how you can address many complex needs within one book with just a couple of examples of children with disabilities but then assert that it will be positive for all children. Disabilities are complex and wide ranging. A child in a wheelchair unable to move at all will have a very different experience to a child with partial hearing loss. How can you address all of that in one book?

If you regard yourself as being at the same level of emotional maturity and reading comprehension as a 3-6 year old, Hooves, I suppose it would behoove you to write to the author, tell her that you are a member of her target market and inform that based on what you've read about her book on message boards you think it sounds like a plot to gaslight you. I'm sure she will give your feedback due consideration.

Jesus, zebras, that’s another book you’re commenting on that you haven’t read! Just read them, and come back with your views from a position of being informed.

Hearhoovesthinkzebras - why are you making a body positive book aimed at young children, all about you?
Accusations of gaslighting, when you haven’t even read it.
ignores my experience and my reality
That’s because it’s not written about you. If you want a book written about your reality then write it yourself.

SonicVersusGynaephobia

I would complain about all books that give unhealthy or unhelpful messages to children.

Just because this book is giving an opposing view to other books it doesn't make it right, in my opinion.

Yes, I'm an adult now but I was also a child with a disability as was my dd so I do think I have insight into how I would have felt reading this as a child. Being told that your body is just right as it is whilst in hospital having surgeries to change your body - that's a bit if a head fuck isn't it? If my body was just right as it was why did I need big surgeries to change it?

FamilyOfAliens

Fair enough. Presumably only the people that have read it can comment then, even those saying it's a good thing but who haven't read it? Will you be telling them not to comment until they've read it too?

Lordamighty

Because I was a child with a disability. My dd was a child with a disability. We have experience of it. Would I have wanted to read a book that told me that my body was great as it was, that I should love it, that I could do or play with whatever I wanted when I absolutely could not? No, I wouldn't have because it would have been patronising and dismissive of my reality. How is that helpful? Clearly the aim is to provide an opposing view to young children around the trans issue so why include disability in that?

Being told that your body is just right as it is whilst in hospital having surgeries to change your body - that's a bit if a head fuck isn't it? If my body was just right as it was why did I need big surgeries to change it?

This book is not about children who are in hospital having medically-required surgery.

One of its aims is to not make children want surgery they don't need. Unlike the 40-odd other books which tell children the opposite.

So I have a question about the book (for those who have read it.)

As a child I was extremely dissociated. I would disconnect from my body due to anxiety and sensory overload. I have a 4 year old niece and I worry that she might be showing signs of the same tendency.

I love this book's title, I think that alone might partially inoculate against that kind of disconnection. Is there anything else in the book of value to possibly-spectrum-y kids?

Incidentally does this book in fact say "your body is just right as it is?" or does it say "love your body, be kind to your body, and treat it with respect?"

Somehow the two concepts seem to have got conflated in this thread, possibly because it's very difficult indeed to concoct any objections to the latter.

so why include disability in that?

Because if anyone is ‘born in the wrong body’ it’s kids like my daughter, who’s own body tried to kill her?

Anyway, I’ve read the book, it’s charming and uncomplicated.

People who haven’t read it protecting their own agenda onto it is unhelpful and pointless.

And no, ‘lived experience’ does not confer greater knowledge than science (and education and professional learning). That attitude is what got us into this identity politics bollocks in the first place.

For a 3-6 year old the message "love your body" is a good one.
For an adult "talking therapy can help you come to terms with the limitations you can't change" is going to be better. But this book isn't for adults.

I'll have to look again kan; if there's any criticism from me (and I love it!) it's that I'd have like to have seen a child wearing headphones 🎧 to block noise for example or have a chewy. I'll have to look
More carefully though, life has been crazy since it came.

It's probably more about free expression and freedom to like and dislike different things. That clothes are the costume of your body, not actually you. Whereas today's children are brought up to think that their clothes and style matter more than them. It shows how interchangeable this is. And that bodies come in different shapes and sizes.

This book had s profound impact on me as a child and it's a shame it's not still in print though clearly still about. it's in a similar vein.

wordery.com/people-peter-spier-9780385244695

This is one of our favourites, it shows the only difference between boys and girls as being anatomical and in how they change physically as they grow.

www.amazon.co.uk/About-Babies-Bodies-Families-Friends/dp/1406306061?tag=mumsnetforu03-21

Yes I have that one too!

Hearhooves, can I ask, and I'm really not trying to goad here, what message you would want to put across to children if you were the author?

zebras

I’m not aware of anyone else apart from you posting about how a book they haven’t read is giving the wrong message because it isn’t about their experience, and telling people it shouldn’t be in schools, but if I did I would say the same to them - read it, and come to the discussion from a position of being informed.

What is penis news? I darent google It sounds like something involving porn? Why are they reviewing a children's book?

Pink news. Very niche LGBTQA++++++++ online publication that gives out annual awards to politicians for services rendered/about to be rendered/might be rendered in the future. A place to be seen it would appear.

Why are they interested in a children's book? Who knows.

Hearhooves, can I ask, and I'm really not trying to goad here, what message you would want to put across to children if you were the author?

Honestly, I would separate out the issues. I wouldn't include disability in a book like this. I think disabilities should be treated as a separate issue because there are so many different challenges facing children with disabilities. I really do think it's too simplistic to give the same message of love your body, it's just right as it is, to both able bodied children and children with disabilities.

This book is not about children who are in hospital having medically-required surgery.

So it isn't aimed at children with disabilities who need surgery then?

It's probably more about free expression and freedom to like and dislike different things. That clothes are the costume of your body, not actually you.

Thank you Neurotrash. I really like the sound of it for a wee girl who overthinks everything! Though I'm hesitant to give it as a gift because googling the title will bring up TRAs badmouthing it. I think my niece is currently safe from trans indoctrination, in Northern Ireland, so I've never talked to her mum about this stuff... Maybe I should do that. Even NI won't be safe for long.

zebra

You didn’t actually answer the question of what message you would be giving if you were the author.

I’m wondering if you’d prefer no message at all unless everyone has exactly the same experience and thinks the same way about their bodies. Which of course is never going to happen.