“Stop touching yourself!”
We’ve been telling Ryan that a lot recently. It’s not an uncommon occurrence to look over and see him with his hands down his underwear — there aren’t any pants to get in the way, since he usually takes those off as soon as he gets home from preschool. To be honest, I’m not quite sure how to deal with it. I reprimand him, and if I have to I physically remove his hand from his pants and redirect him to another activity, but other than that what should I do? I don’t want to reprimand him too much or punish him, because what happens if he associates touching himself with being a bad thing? That’s not something I want to instill in him! Plus, what if he would regress in potty-training? He’s been potty-trained for over a month now, and I’d like to keep things going!
Any thoughts or suggestions? I would definitely appreciate them!
Do NOT reprimand him! Don’t physically remove his hands from his own body! He is not doing anything “wrong”!!!
If it makes you uncomfortable, just redirect him to his room and explain it’s private and meant for “alone” time.
@Sarah @ OneStarryNight: See, that’s the thing… I’m not so much reprimanding him for touching himself as I am for doing it in front of others. Trust me, I don’t want to give him any hang-ups or issues. I’ll just start redirecting him to his room right away. I have been telling him that touching himself is something to do in private only, but I don’t think he quite gets it.
I agree with Sarah. Sascha went through this phase. It was almost a year that I spent telling him to stop touching himself. Every so often now he still does it and he is 8. It didn’t click in for awhile that it was a private thing. So I spent a lot of time sending him off to his room or the bathroom, or telling him not to do it unless he was in there. Eventually he caught on.
I went through this as a child, but as a GIRL doctors and parents don’t see it as normal. Being reprimanded for it are some of my earliest memories. My mom took me to the doctor, for goodness sake, to see if there was something wrong with me. I just wanted to say I’m glad you acknowledge it’s normal and aren’t discouraging him. Definitely tell him that it’s something to do alone and send him to his room and eventually he’ll catch on.
For me it took my older brother (7-8 at the time) telling me the dog would bite me if I did it.
Ethan does exactly the same thing. We’ve just explained to him that touching himself is okay, but that it needs to be done in private. It has taken a while to get it through his head, but now he runs into his room and does his business.
We’ve had the same issue with my brother since about the time he was potty trained. And we went through years of repeatedly telling him that it was inappropriate to do that anywhere besides his room or the bathroom. It eventually stuck, when he was around 15 or 16, but it took literally years for us to get it through his head.
I wouldn’t worry “too much” about reprimanding him. I think if done properly he won’t have any hangups over it. My brother surely doesn’t, and he was reprimanded for touching himself at least 3 or 4 times a week.
Sam does this all the time, too. Think it’s just a guy thing. :p
V xx
This is why I’m glad I don’t have a boy. It seems to be boy behavior and I get how everyone is all don’t tell them it’s wrong, but you can’t really have your kid walking around Preschool doing this can you? I also love when the teachers and other parents assume things about your family because your kid touched himself!
Good luck with this one!
There is nothing wrong with what he is doing. In fact, it’s a psychological thing all young kids do! I’m a Psychology major so pardon my nerdiness, but Freud was the father of sexuality so to speak. He came up with a list of sexual stages all humans go through in their life (boys and girls alike). There are five stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital. Each stage is associated with an erogenous zone on the body. For example, infants are in the oral stage and get pleasure from putting things in their mouth. During the anal stage they may play with their butt a lot. Unfortunately, the phallic stage is when they begin to explore their genitals. It’s completely normal so no repremending is needed. He just needs to understand when it is appropriate and when it’s not (in public, etc).
I don’t have children, so I have no idea what suggestions to give… all I can say is, once they find it, they usually don’t ever let go lol!