Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/17/84; site uvicctr.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtunh!mtung!mtunf!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!ssc-vax!uvicctr!collinge 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 decvax!nrl-css!uvicctr!collinge decvax!uw-beaver!uvicctr!collinge ubc-vision!uvicctr!collinge