Child exposes himself

April 16, 2008 9:22 PM

My eight year old exposed himself to two young girls. What should I do about it?

My neighbor said my eight year old son exposed himself to her six year old daughter and another young girl while playing outside.
I didn't believe my son could do such a thing but when I confronted him, he freely and without hestiation admitted it. He said he did it because it was boring and there was nothing to do. I instructed him to never do such a thing again.
What more should I do? Is this indicative of some future problems?
He's very intelligent child and lately has been kind of obsessed with swear words. Is this just a stage?

posted by anonymous to society & culture (17 comments total)

I think eight is old enough to understand the gravity of your warning. Unfortunately, we live in an age of paranoia about sex. Young children, particularly young boys, expose themselves all the time. Eight is maybe a little old to be doing it for kicks, particularly since that was his admitted motive, but his cognizance of that means that he's also old enough to appreciate that it's not right to do. I really don't think this is anything to worry about unless you have evidence that it is an ongoing problem.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 9:29 PM on April 16, 2008

I don't think it's necessarily indicative of anything ... but he does understand WHY it's bad, right? It's unclear from "instructed him to never do such a thing again" whether you told him the why or issued a blanket prohibition. You might also consider making him apologize to the girls, too.
posted by Happydaz at 10:04 PM on April 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

While I can understand why this would freak you out, I don't think you need to be concerned and it might be a nice opportunity to have good conversations about boundaries, too.

"You are never to do such a thing again" is perhaps a bit vague for a child when "such a thing" is undefined. A calm conversation about privacy and nudity might be a good idea in the near future. You know, the "Penises are fun and they can be funny but they are also private and we don't share our private body parts with other people" conversation.

This may work best if he can also test out the concept of privacy in the bathroom or his bedroom or what have you of that hasn't been a big area of exploration in your house.
posted by DarlingBri at 10:15 PM on April 16, 2008

That kind of behavior is actually totally normal for kids to experiment with.

As stated above, you should talk to him about WHY he shouldn't do it.

Telling kids not to do something without an explanation warrants a repeat offense until they find out why for themselves.

Overall, don't worry about it.
posted by AsRuinsAreToRome at 10:24 PM on April 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

When I was in middle school, one of the boys was always exposing himself. We thought it was funny; however, the school administration was less amused. They settled on telling him that he had to ask his audience first, and only after they agreed, was he allowed to expose himself (what can I say, it was a liberal school). I think having to ask eventually took the thrill out of it (his classmates got off on say "no", although I think most of us really didn't care), and he stopped.
posted by zia at 10:36 PM on April 16, 2008

Oh, for anonymous answers...

I did this once in primary school. It was a mixture of not knowing it was taboo and knowing I liked this girl without having a clue how to show it. So... I showed it. My parents told me it was wrong, I didn't do it again, and I think I'm reasonably fine these days (I'm 23 now).

I wouldn't take this single occurrence as proof that he's a depraved pervert.
posted by twirlypen at 10:43 PM on April 16, 2008 [6 favorites]

As DarlingBri said, I would emphasize the idea of private parts of the body - you don't show or let people touch or touch other peoples with a few exceptions (your parents, a real doctor (not pretend doctors, when you get married you can share with your partner.) If he wants to check his own out or play with it, he should do it in private.

When my son was that age, I told him that swear words were bathroom words (most of his bad words were scatological so they really were). If he wanted to use them with his friends, they could use them in his room or in the bathroom but nowhere else (especially not where younger children or adults, including me could hear him). Don't be shocked but just very calmly say, "That is not a polite word. If you want to use it, you can go in the bathroom and say it as many times as you want but I don't want to hear it.)
posted by metahawk at 10:46 PM on April 16, 2008

It seems like there are two common threads with the swearing and the exposing -- they are both acts of self-expression, and they are both calculated to get a reaction from the listener/viewer. It's entirely possible he had been swearing around the two girls and wasn't getting any/enough reaction (hence "it was boring"), so exposing himself may have been a way to escalate, and elicit a clear response.

As we mature, we start paying attention to the quality of the response we generate in others, but as kids (and especially among boys, I think), anything that evokes shock, surprise, laughter, or other visceral reactions validates our ability to "do things." Kids often feel pretty powerless in a world of grown-ups, so the desire for this kind of validation is pretty strong and bad behavior is often a very quick, easy, and direct route.

Not to be presumptuous about how you and other family members relate to him, but I would say that if you 1) make an effort to react positively when he tries to do constructive things, 2) sincerely listen to him when he offers thoughtful opinions and respond in a manner that encourages discussion rather than demonstrates your authority over him - regardless of whether you agree or disagree with his view, and 3) help him to find and encourage him in positive modes of self-expression, you can begin to reinforce good behavior and steer him toward desiring pleasant reactions from others. It may be awhile before he actually dislikes shocking or upsetting others, but he should gradually lose interest in doing so. I think you're generally right in suspecting that it's "just a phase," but we often use that expression as an excuse to just let things play themselves out when we should be taking a close look at our own approaches to parenting, and correcting behaviors (ours and our children's).

Disclaimer: "Father to two very young girls" is the grand total of my experience and qualifications in child psychology. Most of the time, I'm just guessing.
posted by Bixby23 at 12:10 AM on April 17, 2008

Anon, you have a lot of good answers here already, but I'm just going to chime in and say that I sense from the tone and phrasing of your question that you're fairly shocked and might even think that what your son did was somehow deviant or abnormal.

Its not. Not at all.

Kids -- even 8 year old kids -- don't have the same sense of privacy/shame/modesty/call-it-what-you-will about their bodies that adults do. That's a taught thing. Little kids like to run around naked and maybe check out the parts of the other gender. Older kids might get bored and say "Hey, let me show you my penis" or even do it for the ick value (I'm sure you know that 8 year old boys are all about grossing other kids out).

Your son is not a deviant or a budding sex-fiend. He's just a normal 8 year old boy who got bored one day and thought "Hey, lets see what happens if....". Don't make a big deal about this. Try not to give him any kind of sense of shame about his own body (or anyone else's).
posted by anastasiav at 4:40 AM on April 17, 2008 [3 favorites]

After posting this I found out that a neighborhood boy, perhaps 6 years old or so, told him to expose himself to the girls. Or it was a dare.

I should have mentioned the setting: Outdoors on a beautiful day and about ten boys and girls ages 5 to 8 playing cops and robbers running from house to house.

My wife told me this morning that she's devastated by this but I feel better because of all your comments.
posted by qsysopr at 6:53 AM on April 17, 2008

It's totally normal and a great teaching opportunity. If I'm being totally honest, your wife's reaction concerns me more than your son's. If he picks up on her "devastation" it could end up causing a lot of shame over his actions and even his body, which is obviously not good. I can't emphasize enough that this is normal and correctable.
posted by jluce50 at 7:20 AM on April 17, 2008 [2 favorites]

Hmm. Seems to me you have a child who wants a way to make an impression on others by doing daring things. I'd take him rock climbing or something.
posted by orange swan at 7:34 AM on April 17, 2008

Um, why is it wrong anyway? It's just kids. And a penis on display. Does it matter?
posted by Lleyam at 10:11 AM on April 17, 2008

Qsysopr, why is she devastated?

Your son did a normal little kid thing. That doesn't mean it's an appropriate thing, but it also doesn't make him a monster in training.

Honestly, the only way this is guaranteed to go horribly wrong is if the actions of the adults around him leave him with feelings of confusion, guilt and shame. This is the time for active, positive parenting - a teachable moment. Just step up to the plate, have a rational conversation with your son about what we can do in public and what we can do in private, and tell him that you trust his judgment and his ability to learn these distinctions.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:21 AM on April 17, 2008

Once again chiming in on the normalcy of this activity... having some dim recollection of childhood, I know that the general consensus about clothes was that they were a pain in the rear most of the time, and it was easier to do just about anything when i didn't have to deal with those darn Oshkosh B'goshes.

Now an adult, I regard myself as fairly well balanced - no urges to flash a subway or anything, and when I wander around pantsless I have the sense to keep it at home where it'll only agitate my roommates.
posted by FatherDagon at 11:53 AM on April 17, 2008

"Show me yours & I'll show you mine" is a perfectly normal thing for kids to do, and so is the more one-sided version of flashing. I don't think it's indicative of anything at all. As others have said, making a big deal about it and making him feel terribly ashamed of the incident is going to create more hangups than simply telling him it's not appropriate in public.
posted by miss cee at 2:40 PM on April 17, 2008

Normal. When my nephew was in kindergarten he whipped his out and let some other kids color his penis green with markers because they were playing doctor and he was 'sick.'
posted by CwgrlUp at 3:23 PM on April 17, 2008 [2 favorites]