Advice Forum Friday - The Birds and the Bees...and Puppies. Oh MY.
My girls have been playing make believe all day long with a friend who's here for the day. At one point I looked over and one was laying all weird on top of the other; I couldn't imagine what was going on.
Then I heard this, "Okay, the puppy came out."
Oh my heavens, they're playing puppies giving birth. I didn't say anything, but wondered...oh yes, there was that one episode of Emergency Vets where my girls saw a puppy being born.
Well.
They kept it up. With general anatomical accuracy. Without being inappropriate. If you know what I mean. And I was uncomfortable.
Finally, I said, "Okay, guys, enough with the birthing of the puppies. You can play dogs and puppies all you want, but let's stop giving birth for today."
"Oh. Okay."
"But can we play kitties getting born, then?"
Obsessed much?
"No, sweetie, no more babies being born in this living room for today. Who's taking care of all the puppies that were just born?"
So what I'd like to know from you, oh wise ones, is this: How would you have handled this?
I try not to make a big deal out of this kind of thing, because I don't want my girls to think it's a big deal. But there usually comes a time when I think the subject has gone on long enough or too far, so I step in.
What do you think?
Oh, and as usual, if you have a question, post it on your blog, link back to me, and sign the Mr. Linky down below. If you have trouble, just shoot me an e-mail and I'll try to help ya out.
4 comments:
i would have been laughing too hard to handle anything i think. sounds to me like you did just fine.
I taught Public school 4 year old kindergarten in a former life. Last year (my last year of teaching) several of my little girls and a couple of little boys would get in the house center and pretend pregnancy and birth. One girl would put a baby doll under her shirt and everyone would gather around and watch "the birth". My assistant and I were amazed at the accuracy. It just goes to show how much younger children learn from what they see. We handled things similar to you. How else would you handle that? I think if you make a big deal out of it, it would become a big deal.
I think you handled it perfectly. And that's so cute, really.
I think you handled it just fine. We have the great responsibility of teaching our kids about the birds and the bees. If not us, then who? And if they can't come to us with questions about how babies are born and how they get in there then who will they seek out? It's one of my greatest desires to be the one to teach my kids about the subject. There's so much negative information and attitudes out there about s e uality that I don't want my boys and girl to pick up. Funny you ask. We had a speaker come to our MOPS group yesterday to teach us how to talk to our kids about s e x. Today, you and fiddledeedee.net are both asking how to have the talk!
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