Q&A: 3.5-year-old loves her body

Kristen writes:

"My daughter is 3 1/2 and I am having some problems with her.  She goes to her great grandmother's during the day and she likes to run around with no clothes on.  This really bothers my grandmother in law.  I don't know how to get her to want to wear her clothes.  She has also recently started getting dressed with no underwear on. And she touches herself down there. What do i do to stop this behavior..or is it normal?"

The only problem I really see is the conflict of interest that your GIL wants her to wear clothes and she doesn't want to. Your daughter is old enough at 3 1/2 to understand that she has to respect her great-grandmother in general, and to follow her rules in her house. So sit down and have a talk with her about how she is allowed to choose what she wears (although she has to wear underwear if you want her to), but there is no choice about wearing clothes at great-grandma's house, she just has to do it. If she doesn't wear clothes there she doesn't get to go. This is going to be the first of many conversations about appropriate attire ("no shirt, no shoes, no service" is a hot topic in our house this summer), and is part of the process of learning to balance her own desires with the social compact.

There's no point in trying to make her want to wear clothes. You can't make her want to do anything, and it doesn't matter if she wants to or not, as long as she follows the rules. This is an important distinction that she's probably too young to even begin to understand, but that will become really important to her when she's a teenager and has to do all kinds of stuff she doesn't want to do. I mean, who actually wants to write an essay on Beowulf? But she'll have to do it anyway, even as she maintains the integrity of her own feelings about liking it or not liking it. (Talk about framing narratives--how much do you not want to have to deal with your daughter's nakedness, but you do it anyway because sometimes you just have to do annoying things as part of life.)

To ease the pain of having to wear the shackles of the patriarchy clothes at her great-grandmother's house, you might want to institute an official Naked Time every night between dinner and bedtime. Naked Time is a popular event in my house, and I'm guessing there are a lot of readers who are laughing because their kids love Naked Time, too.

The touching herself is completely normal and really healthy. You want her to know her own body and to know what gives her pleasure. It's only going to help her maintain self-confidence as she grows older and starts to becomes more self-aware, and then later when she starts dating.  But she shouldn't be doing it out where everyone can see, so tell her it's one of those things you do by yourself with no one else around, like pooping or picking your nose. If she does it in front of other people again just calmly and non-punitively send her to do it in her own room.

She sounds absolutely normal and right on track developmentally. The whole naked-love thing is both disconcerting and hilarious, but it seems to go on for months (if not years), so just establish some boundaries and then try not to worry about it.

Comments

[Tracy]

aaahhh, Naked Time... who doesn't love it!?! When my brother and I were really little my dad would make up all kinds of silly things to go along with Naked Time... we were the king and queen of the naked city and the ever popular "ticklin butt" tune always put a smile on my face! I say just let a kid be a kid and enjoy every minute of it!

[Erika]

so very true! 'Happy Hour' aka Nekkid Time is between 4 and 6 in this house...makes her so happy, and really seems to make up for all of those times that she really *has* to have clothes on - city buses for example!

[joline]

My kids love family naked time too. Usually after dinner we let them be naked a little while before bedtime. This often involves a lot of wrestling. And ring around the rosie. For a while there I was starting to worry that my kids were going to think that ring around the rosie was meant to be played naked and that at the next playgroup they would all start strippin down to their birthday suits if anybody suggested playing it.
My almost 3 year old has just discovered the joys of her body. When I asked her what she was doing she happily announced she was "stirring her butt"
Hmmmm. ...

[KC]

My girl has simply enjoyed streaking around the house now and then, especially before or after a bath, but never for hours or all day long -- thank goodness! We never tried to encourage or discourage any of it, just had fun while it lasted. She still really enjoys running and shouting "shake your booty! shake your booty!" and of course shaking hers.

[robin johnson]

This is not a issues, being nude is a normal natural thing to do. Children need to be told when the correct time and place to do that.

Grandmother need to do a self examination to be sure she nit dealing something from the past just because her granddaughter like to be nude.

If she has others in the house she should not be doing it.

My four children run around nude alot in the home. When my daughter has friend over to spend the night it not uncommon for them to see naked boys or girls. These girls are like family and they will strip and be naked also.

Karen

[buy viagra]

so very true! 'Happy Hour' aka Nekkid Time is between 4 and 6 in this house...makes her so happy, and really seems to make up for all of those times that she really *has* to have clothes on - city buses for exampl

[Robin24]

There nothing wrong with it. If your grandmother in-law have issues with a 3 year old running around nude than she does not need to be around your daughter. To be real honest and not be gross about this. The lady is getting sexually arousal from this.

I have two daughters who are 9 and 11 and they at times in the home walk around nude. There friend can be here and they be nude. My nephew who is the same age of my 11 year oled daughter comes to spend weeks with us in the summer and other times in the year and he does it here as he does at home. He walk around in the nude. There nothing sexually abut this and it has no damage to children developing.

You need to deal with your grandmother in law issues. You nay need to ask personal question. The reason why she has a issues is maybe she getting sexually arousal from your daughter and the boys because of something she done in the past.

Many year ago, I meet a women who has issues of brother and sisters sharing a bedroom and she would trouble others with this. What we found out when she was 13 she rape her brother who was 11. So she walk around and thinks every brother and sister share a bedroom is going to do this.

You may have to find someone else to take care of your child. You daughter as my daughters and boys like to be without clothes on and it has nothing to do with sex.

Like in kindergarten boys and girls share same bathroom at school. Children see each other peeing. It not a big deal. Adults ove to start something because of their sicko pervert mind.

I live you and be strong.

[Robin24]

Ask Moxie has another articles. It call children in the opposite sex locker room. Read what some of the boys say and what the girls say. Children mind are not like adults mind. They see thing has more holly than us.

[chanel earrings]

I feel you are too good to write Genius!

[Single Step Dad]

Me and my two daughters love getting naked and wrestling around the house,enjoying our bodies and each other's,until we are spent.

[christian louboutin]

In June of 1996, chez Domaine du Val des Rois, in Valreas, I tasted a 1969 rose that my host, Romain Bouchard, had made, from Grenache, Syrah, and Gamay, and it was breath-taking! Only very slightly past its prime, but still vivid and precise, and riveting. After which we tasted a Tavel, from...1968--a terrible year--and it was more tired than the Bouchard wine, but amazingly still quite interesting.

[air jordan]

Green Leaf is excellent, imo.