Everyone’s Got a Bottom

ByChristie Burnett

Many parents find talking to their children (especially young children) about issues related to sexuality difficult. Private body parts, gender, sexuality, feelings, relationships. These are all important topics of conversation for families to share, regularly.

In the current, April edition of Practical Parenting magazine I have written an article, Private Schooling, discussing why it is important for parents to overcome any embarrassment they have about such issues and talk to their children (from a young age) honestly and openly.

One of the resources I came across when researching the article was a picture book produced by Family Planning Queensland, Everyone’s Got a Bottom (written by Tess Rowley and illustrated by Jodi Edwards);

We all have bodies and we all want to keep them safe.

Everyone’s got a bottom is a story about Ben and his brother and sister learning and talking together about bodies. It is a tool for parents and carers to gently start a conversation with children about self protection.

It’s about children keeping safe in a style that is fun, positive and protective.

– taken from www.fpq.com.au

Through the story of Ben and his family, the book introduces the following concepts in a simple, straightforward manner;

  • We all have a body and we have the right to be able to say what happens to our own body. For example, if I don’t want to kiss someone, I don’t have to.
  • We are responsible for learning how to care for our own bodies.
  • Being ‘nudie’ is okay at home but not when we go out.
  • Everyone has private parts, what they are called, that boys and girls have different private parts of their bodies.
  • Nobody can touch our bodies without good reason.
  • It is rude and not ok for anyone bigger or older than me to touch or see my private parts or show me theirs. Even if it is someone I know or like.
  • If someone wants to do something that is rude, I can talk to a grown up I trust.
  • We don’t have secrets about our bodies or private parts.

The book is suggested for reading to children aged three to eight years but I do read it to Immy (who is just two) and to be honest, she just takes from it the parts that she can understand. She spends more time looking Soxy the cat in the illustration on each page! To me this is unimportant, I am opening an avenue of conversation with her so that she will hopefully know for the rest of her life that she can always come and talk to me about all sorts of things that happen, even the more private or difficult issues.

How do you feel about talking to your child about these types of topics?

Read about other books I recommend, as a teacher and a Mum, here.

Christie Burnett is a teacher, presenter, writer and the mother of two. She created Childhood 101 as a place for teachers and parents to access engaging, high quality learning ideas.

9 Comments

  1. life and the memoirs says:

    Christie, many thanks for the tip on this book! I'm about to place my order 🙂 Thank you for sharing.

  2. This can be a tough topic for parents to broach… and this is a fabulous book. I often think the hardest part of this subject is knowing how and when to bring this stuff up, while I don't agree 100% with everything in the book it makes for a wonderful starting point and you and your kids can all grow and learn from there!

  3. Teacher Tom says:

    We had a wonderful sex educator named Amy Lang come speak to us a few months ago and her approach is much like yours. She figures they're never too young for factual, honest information, and like your Immy, they'll pick out the part they're ready for and disregard the rest.

    I have a 13-year-old now and while she's more comfortable talking with her mom, she'll still talk to me in a pinch. I'm pretty proud of that.

  4. Neither of parents every spoke to me about anything relating to my body. I definitely want to do things differently with my kids, I would love for them to be able to speak to me about anything.

    Thanks for blogging about this book, I'll be ordering a copy.

  5. Thank you so much for this post. It's really hard to talk to kids about this, and I was amazed that though there are lots of books out there that help kids with a variety of subjects surrounding their bodies, they're very hard to find. I did see great reviews of "The Bare Naked Book" as well, which has a slightly different agenda; it's not about protecting bodies, more about simply decreasing embarrassment and learning to properly name parts.

    But this looks like a great resource. It's hard to know how to approach a topic like body safety and privacy without scaring them or overloading them. I think I'm going to try to order this one today.

  6. katef – if you see this, i'm curious… what parts of the book don't you agree with? My little guy is just turning 2 in a few weeks, so I haven't really thought about these issues much yet, so would be interested to hear some different perspectives!

  7. Kelly it's just semantics really…eg I don't much like the blanket ban of being naked 'in public' – I agree with the general concept though and found the book gave us a good jumping off point to discuss what that actually means for us. My oldest girls are 6 and we've talked about what is 'naked' and what is 'public' and what we are ok with and how others might feel etc etc…

  8. Great post Christie, and very important topic. I take an approach with my girls of openness and honesty related to body discussions. From the age they were old enough to be naming body parts ("eyes", "ears", "nose" etc), we included "breasts", "nipples" "vaginas", and "bottoms" just as a matter of fact in the list. Later, around 3, we talked about how boys have different body parts – although the younger one amused us by persistently referring to boys' "peanuts" for some time 😉 By 3.5-4, they understood that some parts of our body are private and should not be touched by other people. It just built on from there.

    Basically, if my daughters ask a question, I answer it honestly. There are no taboo subjects and no embarrassment – this family is a safe place for them to acquire knowledge of and respect for their beautiful bodies. Both of them know all about periods, ovulation and pregnancy. The almost 7 year old is very close to asking the Ultimate Question, and when she asks, I'll answer her. She doesn't deserve less.

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