As a mom of boys, it is almost expected that there be stories about messes, eating habits, attention spans, showering…you know, the little things that us moms care about though growing boys could care less about. But little did I know that the most popular topic that we cover in this household is that of the penis. Three years ago I wrote THIS POST about what I was going through with my then four year old. He had a fascination with his private parts. He would constantly have his hand down his pants, many times even waking up with his hand down his pants. He would play with it and would even make songs up about it. It obviously was a phase because at some point he grew out of it, and I completely forgot about it.
Until now.
Bring in kid 2. The rambunctious, independant, sometimes crazy lunatic, Mr. T. T is now 4 years old, and although he has had his own fascination with his penis over the last year, it wasn’t really a problem until recently. I think we should call ourselves ‘lucky’ when it came to Z’s obsession since it was somewhat tame. T’s on the other hand, is out of control!
Not only will we find him with his hand down his pants, but he actually touches it to things when we aren’t looking (EWWWWWW). He plays with it, he takes it out (luckily not in public places), he sings songs about it, he will just say the word penis over and over until he’s blue in the face. He thinks it’s hilarious. And while it doesn’t help that sometimes it is and we laugh, we try so hard to ignore it so he thinks it isn’t a big deal. I mean this little joker makes us laugh all of the time with his antics. Take one look at this kids face, you’ll know what I mean…
T will literally wake up and start talking about it. On our drive home from Florida, it was constant. And started at 6am! I counted over a couple of hours the amount of times he said the word. And trust me when I say, it was PLENTY. Penis overload.
It got to the point where we had to start with the discipline; that if he said the word he would get into some form of trouble. It’s one thing to talk about it if we are changing, on the toilet, or its ‘standing up’ and is uncomfortable for him (yes, we have those conversations too). But it’s another to just randomly announce it or show it out of the blue. (who needs that at the dinner table, right?!)
Hubs told him the other day that it is a bad word and he shouldn’t use it. It seems to be the only way he will listen, though I’m not sure if saying it is a bad word is the best way to go about it. I want my kids to feel that they can talk to us about anything, including their bodies and what they are feeling. We don’t want him to ever feel that he can’t talk about his privates with us…but, it has to be in context. And context is something we just don’t think he gets right now.
This too is going to be just a phase, but seems to be a little more of a problem with him than it was with our oldest. Should I even consider this to be a problem seeing as how this is a typical boy thing? And something a mom of boys typically have to deal with?
We can tell him that he can play with it in the privacy of his own room and not with us or in public. But how do we deal with the constant chatter about it? It is not a conversation starter 😉
I am totally inexperienced with this strange fixation that these boys have. I guess it could be worse?
Would love to hear from other moms of boys and what they went through! Please share!
xo
D
