can your kids tell boys and girls apart?
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| Sat, 07-29-2006 - 6:37pm |
Both of my kids have a really difficult time differentiating between genders. If you show Sebastian photographs of children, he has a 50% chance of labeling them correctly as boys or girls. Sometimes when I'm out with Sylvia, she'll see another little girl and she'll announce, "Look -- a little boy! I want to say hi to the boy!" (Or vice versa if she sees a boy.)
Sebastian's speech therapist says that I need to go over physical characteristics with the kids to get them to recognize the different genders -- so, girls wear dresses and have long hair, boys wear pants and have short hair, etc. But I have a couple of problems with this approach. First, in this day and age there are just too many exceptions to those kinds of rules. Most girls don't wear dresses on a regular basis, many girls have short hair and many boys have long hair. But also, being a feminist (and a former gender studies professor!) I have a real problem saying, "Girls are like this, boys are like this." I mean, Sebastian likes to play with dolls and push a little pink stroller, and Sylvia loves to play with toy cars, and I see no problem with that. So how can I say, "Look, he has short hair and is fighting with his brother -- he's definitely a boy!" or, "Look, she has a long ponytail and is having a tea party -- she's definitely a girl!"
But I really don't know any other way to get them to recognize gender. Do any of your kids have difficulties figuring out the differences between girls and boys? How did you help them with that?
Jennifer

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Warning: Lots of talk about body parts and where babies may or may not come from. This thread is making me think about anatomy, and the words that we have available.
We've never really talked much about this stuff, especially since I have two boys. I wonder sometimes about what words to use when explaining anatomical differences. I have no problems with words like "penis" and "vagina", except that "vagina" is purely part of the reproductive system, while "penis" is also where the pee comes out...and THAT is what a little kid knows about. A boy pees out of his penis, but a girl doesn't pee out of her vagina. What do you say, "urethra opening"? "peehole"? I suppose you could say "vagina" to mean the whole "down there," but I'd rather not. If there's a more accurate word, I'd use it.
I'm 39 years old, and I'm still not entirely sure what word to use if my son says, "If you don't have a penis, mom, then what do you pee out of?" In the past, I've casually mentioned that women have "a little hole for the pee to come out", and that there is a place down there that a baby can come out of.
I remember when I was nine, my best friend insisted that babies come out of the mothers butt. I insisted that that was wrong, and there was another place, so she said she'd go ask her mother. She went into the kitchen and the two of them exchanged a few words in French, which I don't speak a word of. She then came back and said, "I was right. My mother says babies come out of a woman's butt." At the time, I was really annoyed that her mother would lie like that; but now I suppose it may have been a translation misunderstanding. (Any French speakers?)
Evelyn the Pee-dantic
actually my 5yo ds does a better job than me sometimes.
About a week ago I was out of town and we saw a person walking toward us who had a mohawk.
Debbie,
Good to see you. I was wondering where you were and how the conference went. Sounds like it was interesting to say the least.
BTW, a wise autism specialist I knew once said "we are all at least a little autistic". I do think everyone has some autistic tendancies. I know I have a few as does just about everyone I know. It is determining when there are enough tendancies and effect on life to say that it actually is ASD.
Renee
Hey Renee,
yeah, Dr. Attwood said something like that too.
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