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From: collinge@uvicctr.UUCP (Doug Collinge)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: nudity and kids
Message-ID: <132@uvicctr.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 9-Jul-85 18:32:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: uvicctr.132
Posted: Tue Jul  9 18:32:11 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Jul-85 11:23:33 EDT
References: <219@cuuxa.UUCP>
Reply-To: collinge@uvicctr.UUCP (Doug Collinge)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria B.C. Canada
Lines: 27
Summary: 


	I think you have to really watch it with respect to "not giving
them the answers until they ask the questions".  What may happen is
that sex topics become  a kind of "black hole".  Sure, the kid gets the
answers when he asks the questions but he can't help noticing that
no-one ever brings up the topic of the various sex organs except him.
If you developed a model of the human body from what my own parents
talked about with me the legs would join at about the level of the
navel.  Kids imitate their parents, as you know, and may end up just
never talking about it either, at least at home.
	I have a neighbour who uses that philosophy with her
eight-year-old daughter - and guess what?  The kid is just dying to
know all about sex but can't ask her mother because she knows that all
those things are not topics of regular discussion in her house.  The
mother doesn't actually have much time left since around here kids know
it all from various unreliable sources by the age of ten.
	So don't worry about telling them things they can't understand -
much of what they see and hear in a day is incomprehensible to them.
If they can't understand it they will just get bored and leave.
-- 
		Doug Collinge
		School of Music, University of Victoria,
		PO Box 1700, Victoria, B.C.,
		Canada,  V8W 2Y2  
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