TEACHING CHILDREN ABOUT SEX: QUESTIONS PARENTS ASK-WHAT SHOULD I DO IF I FIND THEM PLAYING DOCTORS AND NURSES?
Posted on 2009 under Men's Health-Erectile Dysfunction | No CommentWhat should I do if I find them playing doctors and nurses?
Young children are learning all the time and are naturally curious. They particularly like the differences between male and female bodies and explore everything. Part of this involves exploring their own and other children’s bodies. Unfortunately most parents are so anxious about children showing each other their genitals that they do not cope very well and so pass on negative attitudes to their children. Almost all children undress in front of the opposite sex and play ‘doctors and nurses’, ‘bottoms’, ‘mothers and fathers’ or something similar, and no harm comes of it. They are all ways in which little children try to mimic the sex roles of adults, if only for a few minutes. They also enjoy the exciting feelings it produces.
What is harmful is the guilt the child feels if his parents are cross or make him feel wicked. Lots of children, realising that it is not what their parents want them to do, try to get caught so that they have to stop what they are doing. This sense of wanting to be caught because of the ‘rudeness’ of it all is made far worse by heavy-handed telling off.
Some control may be helpful in certain circumstances because young children get excited and alarmed by the feelings of excitement (even though it is not usually genital excitement) that such play can sometimes arouse and they need to know that their parents can cope with the situation and control it. These are big feelings for young children and they need help in handling them. Often a child will be far more guilty-looking and embarrassed than the true nature of the sex games warranted.
A very few children’s sex games are a sign of a disturbed child, but such games are usually imposed on other children rather than enjoyed mutually, and the other children tell their parents. Such disturbed children need professional help as do children for whom sex games have gone wrong and caused distress. Apart from keeping an eye open for any negative effects sex games may be having, also make sure that the children are not doing anything dangerous to one another. A young child who has had its temperature taken rectally may, for example, introduce other children to things being pushed up their bottoms and this should be discouraged because of the possibility of physical damage.
Sex games among young children are simply a prelude to other much more sexually explicit discovering ‘games’ they will be playing ten years later, so it is just as well to come to terms with your curious, enquiring child because this is the first step on a long ladder and if you worry and fuss at every rung you will both end up anxious and neurotic over sex.
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