How to Raise a Gentleman Revised and Expanded by Kay West

Author:Kay West
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2011-11-16T00:00:00+00:00

93

Chapter Twelve

PRIVACY, BOUNDARIES, AND APPROPRIATE ATTIRE

A photograph that always makes me laugh whenever I run across it is of my son, his friend, and his friend’s younger brother in the Jacuzzi bath at his friend’s house. The two older boys were about five, the younger was around three. There are a series of shots. The photographer apparently instructed the boys to act out “See no evil, hear no evil, say no evil” with each boy taking a different part. There are bubbles everywhere, and the water is up to their chests. Until the final shot, when all three have jumped up, arms raised, in a “ta-da!” moment, grinning from ear to soapy ear, gloriously, joyfully naked as jaybirds.

The photo still makes my son smile when he sees it, remembering the fun they had. But he also made me swear not to use it in the photo collage for his senior page in the high school yearbook. His friend extracted the same promise from his mother regarding his bar mitzvah.

94

In my experience of parenting a girl and a boy, I can generalize that boys come to modesty later than girls. I can’t recall often, if ever, having to say, “Please put some clothes on!” to my daughter. On the other hand, I can’t count the number of times I walked past my son’s bedroom and saw him sitting on the floor, engrossed in building a new K’NEX structure, still totally naked from the bathtub he left thirty minutes before. “Please put some clothes on!” Eventually, his need for privacy began to keep pace with the trajectory of his development.

Young boys often disguise or assimilate their curiosity and growing awareness of sexuality and changing bodies with humor. I could not say the words “nuts” or “balls,” or the name “Dick,” to my son and his pals without gales of laughter in response. But educating your son about his body, boundaries, sexuality, and appropriate behavior is serious. If you are unsure where, when, and how to begin, there are many books and plenty of information on the Internet. Parents can and should discuss with their pediatrician when and how to talk about sexuality with their son.

Conversations about reproduction and human sexuality are an ongoing process, and should be addressed openly, honestly, positively—and appropriate to their age. There is no reason to have the same conversation with a six-year-old that you would with a sixteen-year-old.

95

It can begin with teaching young men the correct word for sexual organs—penis, testicles, vagina, breasts, and rectum. Young boys generally delight in using locker room words, but they need to know it is not appropriate to use them in public, in front of adults, or in mixed company.

Before your son starts preschool, explain to him in a relaxed but firm tone what “private parts” and “inappropriate touching” mean. By nature, children are curious and exploratory. They also want to please others, particularly grown-ups they like and trust. He needs to hear from his parents— with reinforcement from the pediatrician on annual checkups—what is normal and appropriate, what is not, and how to say “no”.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.