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Raising kids with nudity

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  • 1 - 0 11 posts
    Chris K December 1, 2020 12:27 AM GMT 0 likes

    Thanks Sam, its true nudity hadn't ever been an issue until Ben turned 11 and changed from Primary to Secondary school and he started to ensure the bathroom door was fully closed, subtle hints like that?

    but since we went through the whole having to help him bath when he broke his leg and literally undress him it has led to a number of open conversations around puberty and nudity which have been really good..

    for example he's staying with me for two weeks currently and while I was showering this morning in my bathroom he wanders in and starts a conversation, when I finished showering he just casually took off his underwear completely unfazed and hopped in the shower! 

    I think not making an event out of it helps if that makes sense?

  • 1 - 0 11 posts
    Chris K December 4, 2020 1:06 AM GMT 0 likes
    I remembered an ideal example of when things changed for me and my son..

    All of the swimming pools near us have mixed gender changing areas with cubicles, parents with young kids just take them into the larger cubicles with them and change!

    I clearly remember taking Ben to our local leisure centre when he was 10 and him having a tantrum about being old enough to go in his own cubicle to change then subsequently forgetting most of his clothes when he came out of the cubicle which I had to grab..

    Seems we become shy and self concious but don't really understand why?
  • 30 - 0 108 posts
    Grahame Peck December 6, 2020 6:55 PM GMT 0 likes
    I think once kids reach their teenage years the pressure to conform and be accepted by the external group becomes extreme. Prior to them reaching that age their main focus would be the family but they are not building the sex separated mating groups that form in the teenage years. I think such withdrawal to single sex associations are biologically programmed at that point. Thus the media and fashion driven ideal and the need to be accepted become both extreme and entrenched.

    This tends to persist into at least the 20's and sometimes longer. Because of the timing and duration such entrencement becomes rather hard to overturn particularly as acceptance by the group, which is driven by idealized media is paramount.

    This is not assisted by media driven paranoia nor the pandering to the insecurities of some. Still I get off topic. As said previous we have raised kids and grandkids as naturists. All have drifted away in their teens but maybe only 50% have returned to it as adults. Even then as closet naturists most of the time. I fear largely because of the external pressures to conform.



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    Jonathan Fuzzybare52 January 23, 2021 12:41 PM GMT 0 likes
    Anna's article in the February H&E deals peripherally with this issue.  I was never all that concerned with what my peers in high school thought of me but I can understand the pressure teens can put on each other.  While I wasn't raised in a naturist family I think I can say that we were reasonably casual about nudity.  I was allowed to skinny dip in our pool and I frequently saw my father nude; my mother, never.

    All you can hope is that you raise them with the ability to think for themselves.  That trait may disappear for some time (and you'll be considered dumb as dust) but once kids reach 20 they'll be amazed at how smart you've gotten and they will remember situations from their pre-teen years.
  • 265 thanks 106 - 0 354 posts
    Steve ANW February 2, 2021 9:44 AM GMT 0 likes
    Absolutely Jonathan. We just offer our children the best we can - we know the outside world will offer other ideas - like it does with everything especially for teens when pressure to drink, smoke, take drugs, break laws, bully, tease, lose virginity etc are always looming. All we can hope for in sensible and confident children who stand by their principals even if sometimes they have to stand by them quietly. I wonder how Kipling would update "If" today...