Body Talk With Babies!
02.24.16 | Share: Share on Twitter Share on Facebook
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Totally Mommy Podcast
Episode 109
Elizabeth and Vanessa dive into their good/bad/funnies (Table manners! Great gusto!/ A low moment! Naughty time! / “Thanks!” Poopnut!) before giving their unqualified advice to listener questions about how to communicate with in laws about their visiting and enthusiasm for a new baby, how to talk to our children about their bodies and sexuality through the ages, what to do about confronting parents who are allowing their child to tantrum in a restaurant, and whether or not to have a third child as a single mom? Enjoy!
11 Comments!
From Diapers to Dating: A Parent’s Guide to Raising Sexually Healthy Children is a great book and makes the whole process a little less overwhelming: http://amzn.com/155704810X
Was going to recommend this exact book!
What is the cliff notes version?
To the writer-inner with the English in-laws… I also have English in-laws and in our case, when they realized we were having children was when they realized my husband wasn’t coming back to the UK. Not that he was ever going back, but they always had (unspoken) hope. So, I have to take one for the team and accept that they silently blame me for stealing their son away. Also, there’s this weirdness about having American grandchildren. They love our children and will be perfectly pleasant and polite to me and will never talk about it (but I have confirmation from other family members). It was hard for me to get used to because I come from a huge loud irish family that needs no excuse to tell you how they really feel, but it’s mostly cultural and you shouldn’t take it too personally.
I read a lot about sex positive parenting. You let kids know when and where it’s appropriate and not. I don’t have one particular article or website to point at but I tend to agree with and like the things that go a long with sex positive parenting.
I need to chime in about tantrums…My son is having really bad tantrums as of late. As much as we try to soothe him out of it and avoid his tantrum triggers, sometimes he just needs to tantrum. At that point, there’s nothing we can do. He doesn’t listen to reason, actually he doesn’t listen at all! At that point, we just calmly express sympathy and then we have to completely disengage and let him work through it.
About the question on the restaurant tantrum, unless the kid is throwing things or in the way of restaurant staff carrying giant trays of hot food then there’s not much else anyone can do. Definitely don’t talk to the parents, as that will only make it worse, because now you’ve gone from a tantruming kid with stressed out parents to a tantruming kid with stressed out/embarrassed/defensive parents. For your safety and wellbeing, STAY OUT OF IT. Like Elizabeth and Vanessa said, if you’re going to mention it to anybody, mention it to your waiter. Is it common courtesy for parents to take their screaming kid out of a restaurant? OF COURSE! But so is talking in a movie theater, and you know how that goes. And of course remember the majority of parents really are just trying their best, parenting is hard, parenting in public is even harder.
Here’s a good article to read on dining out with children who have Autism: http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2013/04/01/autism-restaurants/
Regarding the body talk, Sex is a Funny Word is an amazing book!
http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Funny-Word-Bodies-Feelings/dp/1609806069
Thank you so much Elizabeth and Vanessa for the acknowledgment of children on the autism spectrum. Having a child with autism is hard, and this form of ignoring a tantrum is part of some of the ways of having the child not getting attention for negative behaviour. Personally if my child was doing this in a resteraunt I would certainly not have let this go on I would for sure have brought her out to the car because I dont want to ruin other peoples nights and also your right its no easier on the parent in this situation trying their best to raise their child. It is nice to have someone understand that parenting is different for everyone and as long as the child is not being harmed, screamed at or emotionally affected were all doing our best. Love the show <3
A Mighty Girl has a good round up of books to help navigate talking to your kids about their bodies, where babies come from and appropriate/inappropriate touching.
http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=11069
Also, my daughter (now 4) was slower to warm as an infant and toddler, and hellos were hard. She was often described as serious and intense by others, observations which bugged me when they came from total strangers. As she’s gotten older, she’s come out of her shell quite a bit, but is still clearly less outgoing than many of her peers, and sometimes I can get hung up on whether her introversion is perceived as rudeness. In certain situations where I feel like there might be people “rushing” her or wanting to say hi, we talk about it in advance and figure out what she might be comfortable with. For her this is making brief eye contact and giving a little wave. But to this day if she’s caught off guard, it’s nothing but silence and a “why are you talking to me?” face. We’ve had many stone-faced encounters with a variety of friendly Trader Joes employees. On the flip side I love how observant and introspective she is. Her almost 2 year old brother is the polar opposite (smiles at everyone, rushes into social situations), so yeah, that temperament thing - it’s pretty apparent from day 1.
Loved the discussion of body talk! I am with both of you that body talk is hard with your kids when you didn’t have it in childhood.
Also, I took your podcast survey. It was hard as a stay at home mom to answer the questions about current occupations and current job title. I hated having to click other or not employed and wished there was a better option for all the stay at home parents out there!