Word Up: Parents Should Use Correct Words for Body Parts
Of all the euphemisms in the world, we have the most for “Penis” and “Vagina”. Clearly, we Brits have a problem with getting clinical about sexual health, but perhaps that’s how we were raised. “Vulva” and “scrotum” are hardly pleasant words to teach your kid, so surely something a little bit cuter helps parents to soften the blow, making body parts a little less scientific. Yet Karla Helbert has taught her daughter, now 5, the correct names for her vagina and vulva, just as she did with nose and toes.
According to Helbert, 42, a counsellor in Richmond, Vancouver, she taught her daughter the correct terms because she wanted to make it easy for her to say those words that tend bring on the nervous giggles in many adults and kids alike. ‘I want her to grow up knowing she has ownership of her body and to not feel ashamed,’ she said. ‘Sometimes when people give all these different names to genitalia, it sort of connotes this sense of shame, that we can’t call this what it really is because it’s bad.’
It is Helbert’s hope that using the correct terms will help her daughter to avoid confusion over what body part she is really talking about and know that it’s OK to talk about any part of her body. Helbert added that accurate words may protect her daughter from molestation: ‘If they have ownership, that’s going to be one more piece of power they have, so hopefully it will give her the ego strength to say, “No, this is my body”. I think that starts early on.’
Dr Bob Sege, director of the division of family and child advocacy at Boston Medical Centre, agrees with Helbert. He notes that most parents in his practice do not use the correct words with their kids, but they need to in order to make it easier for children to discuss medical problems and abuse. According to Sege, ‘It makes communication clearer because they can tell someone, “He put his penis in my vagina”.’
He added, ‘More importantly, it communicates that the adults can hear about that part of the body’ from a child, and ‘it’s not something you have to hide. A child should view their entire body as healthy and there’s no particular part of their body that’s shameful.’ Sege, who is also a member of the American Academy of Paediatrics Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, concluded, ‘Everything has a name and they should use the correct name.’
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