Does anyone have any experience with kids that are growing up with older cousins? The reason I ask is because my daughters are 5 and 6 and are growing up with their female cousins who are 9 and 11. The older cousins know about things that are inappropriate for young kids like the changes in the body structure and etc and have mentioned it to their younger cousins. How do you deal with it and explain to the young kids. Also, how do you approach the parents of the older cousins and inform them of the situation or do you?
Hmmm. I grew up with older/younger/same age cousins. The older ones were about 6+ years older, so there was never an issue of us hanging out.
However, the cousins that were my age, my parents didn't like me playing with them, for various reasons (which I now think are valid). But even as adults, my parents still have an issue with me being friends with my relatives, but I don't. (it goes much deeper than what I'm saying here, but I hope u get what I mean).
I guess this is a delicate situation....because you dont' want to offend the parents and going by only what you said, it doesnt' seem like the girls are being inappropriate...just not age-appropriate (which I believe are two diff things), so you may want to approach with that in mind...
If you were to approach them, I would stress that there are just some things you don't want your daughters to be exposed to **yet **as opposed to saying that they're exposing them to inappropriate subjects.....and, you know, if they're talking about body-changes/periods/puberty etc, I'd leave that to the mothers to handle.....just my two cents. Im sure the parents here can explain much better!
Are they the understanding type? Or the my-kid-is-not-like-that- & how-dare-you-say-something-about-my-kid type of people?
If they are the latter, then be even more careful in how to tell them.
The parents are my sister and brother in law and since I cant talk to my sister about this my wife will have to do it and I m not sure what she would say and how she can approach her.
Hmmm. I grew up with older/younger/same age cousins. The older ones were about 6+ years older, so there was never an issue of us hanging out.
However, the cousins that were my age, my parents didn't like me playing with them, for various reasons (which I now think are valid). But even as adults, my parents still have an issue with me being friends with my relatives, but I don't. (it goes much deeper than what I'm saying here, but I hope u get what I mean).
I guess this is a delicate situation....because you dont' want to offend the parents and going by only what you said, it doesnt' seem like the girls are being inappropriate...just not age-appropriate (which I believe are two diff things), so you may want to approach with that in mind...
If you were to approach them, I would stress that there are just some things you don't want your daughters to be exposed to **yet **as opposed to saying that they're exposing them to inappropriate subjects.....and, you know, if they're talking about body-changes/periods/puberty etc, I'd leave that to the mothers to handle.....just my two cents. Im sure the parents here can explain much better!
Thanks Sara. That is what I mean here that I don't want my daughters to learn about things that will occur later for them in life.