Kids/swimming/nakedness

[LoraLoo]

So... My 7 yr old has just restarted school swimming lessons, once a week. She has not done them since last year, and has evidently become more body conscious since she has asked me if she can wear a skirt on Thursdays, rather than trousers. This is so she can slip her costume on under her skirt.

It got me thinking- in this day and age, is it acceptable to expect our kids to just strip naked in front of other children/adults?

We've always been comfortable naked around each other, we are not prudes, my kids wander around naked hakf the time and they're always jumping in the tub with me or barging in on each other on the loo.

But now she's brought it up, it's not sitting well with me. There are only 3 cubicles that have curtains so they all change in one room- prior to swimming class there is a mums and toddlers group so they will be getting dressed just as the school kids are getting undressed.

 

[lau86]

I always hated getting changed for swimming at school. We were made to change boys and girls together. I remember trying to go to the toilet with a couple of friends and being told off by the teacher. Obviously some kids don't mind but those that do I think there should be another option. There's no dignity in it and I don't see why it's any different to an adult not wanting to be naked infront of everyone

 

[LoraLoo]

That's how I feel too. Plus the fact there are other adults in the changing room that are notning to do with school.

 

[loeylo]

I would be uncomfortable with that. My swimming pool has two group change rooms (male and female) plus maybe 5 family change rooms (one family at a time, they have a baby change and a strapped seat for babies) and lots of individual change rooms too. I've never been to a pool with so few private change options, even in really remote village pools up north!

Could you give her a large bath sheet and ask her to buddy up with a friend and hold it for each other?

 

[Caite]

I'm still WTT and don't have kids yet, so I've only got my experiences to go on.

At 7, we were still getting changed in a classroom (boys and girls) for PE, which we did in our vest and pants - inside and outside. (I feel so old saying that, I'm not - I'm only 30!)

I didn't have school swimming lessons til I was about 9. We always got changed in a communal female changing room, and I don't think it really bothered me. I was starting to grow breasts by that point, and would just cover myself so as not to expose my breasts (I was the only girl developing breasts in primary school).

Even in secondary school, it was a communal, single-sex changing room, after swimming and other PE. I wasn't too bothered after PE, but didn't like it after swimming, but I guess as a teenager, you're all going through massive changes to your body at different rates. (Plus, all the other girls were super-skinny and I wasn't!).

I volunteered for an organisation for many years. This often involved going away and staying in a room with up to 4 or 5 other women, getting dried and dressed after showers with no privacy. I've even changed in accommodation I've shared with groups of men. Certainly not as a pre-teen or an adult has it bothered me.

The thing that would bother me about your daughter's experience is the public getting changed in there - surely that's a safeguarding issue!?