Flashing Your Children! Should Nudity Be Natural or Forbidden in Your House?

When becoming a parent there are lots of little things that just never cross your mind until those little bundles of joy start to learn how to walk and talk and to start asking those embarrassing little questions like "What is that?" and "Why does dad have one of those, and I don't?" type questions. How you handle these as a parent can sometimes mean a lot of major frustration and anxiety in your children and yourself.

A lot of households are now going for the more 'natural' approach when it comes to raising their children in today's society and going for the see all, tell all approach to children's enquiries and natural inclinations to be in our more natural form of human nature. Nudity. This is not to say that parents run around naked in front of their children, and flaunt their nudity in front of them. No, not by any means, but they do not hide it either.

To quote Gayle Peterson, PhD on the question of nudity and children: "Your naturally occurring nudity is not a problem -- as long as you, your husband and child are comfortable with it. In fact, it may easily convey an attitude that reduces shame and increases comfort in your son's perception of his own body. A healthy relationship to our bodies begins with liking ourselves and acquiring knowledge about how our bodies work. A natural acceptance, conveyed to our children, can promote their own positive self-image and contributes to self-esteem and the development of healthy adult sexuality."

You see if you as a parent adopt the attitude that nudity is a completely natural occurrence and don't jump for that robe or towel when your children come into the room, your children will be more comfortable with themselves, you, and about their own body image. Most of your child's attitudes and perceptions on life are garnered from you, the parent. At least until they are old enough to be able to think and reason and get out into the world on their own, but most of those earlier beliefs and systems will still be in place with them, and they are hard to break free of.

Nudity in public has never been an issue in school until recently when children started to bulk at taking public showers with each other, which I will put part of the blame for this on over reacting parents that do not show any nudity in their own households. Otherwise why would this be an issue for the children? Or, I should paraphrase and say, 'Such a big one?'

Quoting Wikipedia - "Other school boards, however, have still resolutely declined to provide options for privacy accommodations during PE showers. Four common reasons are used by these schools to justify requiring communal showers as part of the physical education curriculum:

Some public schools believe that all students should learn to feel comfortable entering open dressing and showering environments , and part of the school's mission is to educate the entire child

Budgetary and logistical constraints often make privacy options too expensive to be managed with available time and funds. Other schools have argued that since adding privacy accommodations involves spending substantial tax money simply to meet the belief systems of particular religious groups, that public schools are prohibited by the establishment clause from making these changes.

A small percentage of students have always objected to communal showers; however, after the first few days of school showers, these students very frequently overcame the initial embarrassment and were fine. In most cases, the objections to school showers are actually from the student's parents, while the student in question does not object to having to take showers.

Students within the school environment have less expectation of privacy than members of the population generally. It is socially acceptable in the United States to be nude in the company of others of the same gender. Requiring school showers within the boundaries of social acceptance is not beyond reason. The fact that a student or a student's parents may be religiously or morally opposed to an open locker room environment does not make that activity socially unacceptable, and schools do not change policy to each student's personal comfort level. Compulsory communal showering remains a controversial subject for many worldwide. However, throughout much of the world, students in physical education classes undress and shower together on a daily basis. For better or for worse, school showers have been most youths' introduction into communal nudity.

Most experts agree that nudity and childhood development go hand in hand. Nudity is NOT detrimental to your child's health, in fact it is said to be healthy for both the mental and the physical well-being of your child.

Now I don't want you to go out and throw away all your clothes and become a nudist, but come on let's stop jumping for those bathrobes, and towels when our children happen to walk in on us getting out of the shower, or walk into our bedrooms when we are getting dressed! We were in fact brought into this world naked and we will leave this world that way, so why should we be ashamed of it? Maybe we should teach our children something good for a change?!?