Should I tell 3 yr old son what his p---s is called?

watergirl

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:14 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Sure, and when your kid is expelled for using dirty words... you'll send him to marina's school.

P3nis is not a dirty word. I can think of actual dirty words to call it, but thats not one of them.

My kids know the correct names for their body parts.

amother

Red

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:32 pm

I told my kids that's your private, which is not incorrect so what's wrong? Its just a euphemism. An I think for little kids is great as its accurate and everyone knows what they are talking abt but no uncomfortable situations.

amother

Beige

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:37 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

I’m sure she would have been believed if she called it “my front private part.”

No. She was able to describe and explain what happened with a lot of specificity and she came across much more credible for a little child than if she had just said something general like that. But whatever, this is not the kind of thing people accept until they go through it.

amother

Smokey

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:47 pm

This thread is really bothering me, and it took me a while to put it into thoughts:

1. We don't have specific words for these body parts in Hebrew. We say "eyver" or "zeh hamokom" - that's our mesorah. Why should we change our mesorah?

2. Another thing that I realized - I had always thought that using correct body parts is a good thing, and it took me time to realize, that nivul peh is assur. Which means that it is assur to talk about specifics, at least as far as I understand...

Euphimisms is the Jewish way to go.

And yes, if my son had a boy in his class who taught him the word "p*nis" I would definitely call the school to complain.

mommy3b2c

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:50 pm

amother wrote:

I’m sorry, but p-nis is not nivul peh. There’s nothing wrong with teaching your toddler the word. But there’s also nothing wrong with calling it a pee pee or a wee wee, until they are a bit older.

amother

Gold

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:52 pm

Op here.
The thing I'm most afraid of is giving my son an unhealthy perspective on the word and the actual body part.
I don't want him to think it's "secretive" or "dirty," and I don't want him to be self conscious about it when he gets older.
I feel like this age is the most normal/least awkward to teach him about it, because he's so young.

amother

Cerise

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:54 pm

amother wrote:

Well Yiddish has no shortage of words for the male part, if Hebrew is lacking (which it isn’t)

amother

Chartreuse

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:56 pm

amother wrote:

And yes, if my son had a boy in his class who taught him the word "p*nis" I would definitely call the school to complain.

and tell the School what? And then what? Your son won’t un- learn the word. I get you want to shelter your child, but what are you telling the school for? It is inevitable that your child will learn things from other children at school and camp. Why are you calling the school?
And learning the correct term for ones anatomy is not in the same league as learning about Sx intercourse as a child. So don’t start comparing them.

amother

Smokey

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 2:57 pm

mommy3b2c wrote:

I’m sorry, but p-nis is not nivul peh.

Is this a psak? Did you ask your Rav?

As for Yiddish... I can't answer for Yiddish, and not everyone who spoke Yiddish was frum. But in seforim, euphemisms are always used.

RebekahsMom

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 3:23 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Sure, and when your kid is expelled for using dirty words... you'll send him to marina's school.

Considering the size of the population that doesn’t know the word relations or intercourse, it doesn’t surprise me that they refuse to admit that pen-s is a word.

Think of it like this- if they use the word, the poor kids whose parents refuse to admit that “it” has a name are too clueless to know what they’re talking about anyway.

In the meantime, I think we should ban all discussions about f-ngers. They’re a part of the anatomy. They can be used to write bad thoughts. They can steal. They can even be used to touch your husband’s “dangly thing”!! Or flip off a guy in traffic. They are the very definition of nivul peh!! BAN THAT WORD!!!!

My kids have known it since they were little, and newsflash!! They NEVER ONCE randomly blurted out the names of their parts in mixed company. (My son had once told me that his pen-s hurts from chafing, and my daughter from a UTI). If you teach your child up front what it’s called, along with a reminder that we don’t discuss the part with anybody but you and the doctor, it’s not an issue.

But honestly, I’m curious if I started a thread about “my son asked what a pen*s is, what should I tell him?” (And just hope that I won’t read “never heard of it” as a reply).

simba

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 3:43 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Ok, I would like someone to call their local Orthodox Rabbi and ask if you are allowed to use the words p*nis or v*gina when explaining body parts to your child.

I would volunteer but I am doubting he is Orthodox at this point!

amother

Slategray

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 3:45 pm

With the encouragement of several Orthodox rabbis, my MO pediatrician always tells DC what she’s doing as she does it. As in Now I’ll look into your eyes, now I’ll listen to your chest, hold your pen@@s so I can look at it and look under it/open the outside of your vag@@a so I can make sure everything looks ok. She did the moving around herself before they were old enough to understand. She also makes sure her patients understand puberty and reviews info with them after talking to the parents. DC are dressed by that time with a parent in the room. She doesn’t talk about where babies come from, etc unless parents ask her to.

I never heard any of my DC’s friends yell out names of body parts. They did all go through the yelling Poop and Doody stage.

RebekahsMom

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 3:53 pm

Mommyg8 wrote:

Ok, I would like someone to call their local Orthodox Rabbi and ask if you are allowed to use the words p*nis or v*gina when explaining body parts to your child.

I’d also like to know which LOR’s allow the same words in kallah classes. I’m not being sarcastic- I’m wondering if the ones who won’t allow those words to be taught to children have the same hesitation to say them to adults.

Mommyg8

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 3:56 pm

RebekahsMom wrote:

No sarcasm in the answer - yes, both my kallah teacher and my husband's chasan teacher used the words Eyver, and zeh hamokom. Very maintream yeshivish.

Nobody in the room had the slightest question as to what these words meant.

mommy3b2c

Sun, Dec 10 2017, 4:22 pm

amother wrote:

Is this a psak? Did you ask your Rav?

As for Yiddish... I can't answer for Yiddish, and not everyone who spoke Yiddish was frum. But in seforim, euphemisms are always used.

Did you ask a rav if you’re allowed to eat bananas on Sundays?

Not everything needs a psak...