So my kid learned a new gesture on the bus...

[Anonymous]

Wait until you get asked if a fist can fit in a butt and my all time favorite, banging balls in the face.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, you know that means "a$$hole" right?

I guess if you are gay, but it usually means sex

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait until you get asked if a fist can fit in a butt and my all time favorite, banging balls in the face.

Bahaha

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like what? Tell the bus company and the principal and demand they get a bus aide? Your kid's gonna learn shit from older kids. That's life.

Yeah, I know that. I'm not a pearl clutcher. I thought it might be worth mentioning to the bus driver so she can keep an eye on the older kids. But, maybe not worth the effort. Why do people default to rudeness so often on this forum?

I'm being realistic. The bus driver needs to keep an eye on the road. The bus driver's priority is to safely drive the bus. Not to monitor what kids are saying to each other.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wait until you get asked if a fist can fit in a butt and my all time favorite, banging balls in the face.

OMG. I'm dying

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't know about you, but we didn't talk about f*cking on my elementary school bus, and I didn't grow up in the nicest neighborhood.

Seriously? Where did you grow up, Mr. Roger's Neighborhood? I grew up in a nice, rural area and we joked about all sorts of stuff including sex (although most of the time it was started by one kid and resulted in an ewwwwwwwww by the rest of us).

Same here. I remember hearing about how babies were made on the elementary school playground, and that was in the mid-1970's! Sex talk among children is certainly nothing new, including the slang words and gestures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is what I would say to my 7 yo (who knows how babies are made):

The finger in the hole probably represents penis in the vagina. Now, that kind of stuff is EXTREMELY personal, and the gesture can get you into a TON OF TROUBLE. Do you see mature responsible grownups doing that? (No. Because it is so personal and obnoxious, that adults know it's a powerfully rude thing to do!) It can certainly get adults into trouble, too.

If someone did that gesture to make other people uncomfortable or nervous or threatened, then they made a terrible mistake and they need to apologize. It can be the kind of thing that a bully might do. Sex is personal. Penises and vaginas are personal. Don't make people sweat or nervous by making that gesture. It's just not right.

And then ask: Is this kid a good kid who just made a mistake? Or does he do this kind of thing all the time? [Then ask what else he does, and take it from there.]

+1. I like your response! Totally age appropriate and effective without overreacting.

[Anonymous]

Lots of 8 year old kids have older siblings, you are aware of that? If not the bus, the playground.

[Anonymous]

I would just keep it short but sweet: That kid was being rude in an attempt to be funny. Stay away from him and don't YOU ever do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, when my child asks for an explanation of something like that, I say "It's about sex." She usually loses all interest. It's not like I'm graphically spelling out "The left hand is making penis gestures and the right hand is the vagina and they are..." I think you kind of were coy with your child needlessly. Just answer the question. And telling him not to be friends with this kid to me is way overblown. Based on a dirty joke on the school bus?

+1

You can't just say it's rude and not explain it. Pretty sure that's guaranteed to make him even more curious about what it could mean.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Like what? Tell the bus company and the principal and demand they get a bus aide? Your kid's gonna learn shit from older kids. That's life.

Yeah, I know that. I'm not a pearl clutcher. I thought it might be worth mentioning to the bus driver so she can keep an eye on the older kids. But, maybe not worth the effort. Why do people default to rudeness so often on this forum?

I'm being realistic. The bus driver needs to keep an eye on the road. The bus driver's priority is to safely drive the bus. Not to monitor what kids are saying to each other.

+1. The monitoring is supposed to be done by those useless, selectively dictatorial patrols, but that BS is a whole other can of worms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is what I would say to my 7 yo (who knows how babies are made):

The finger in the hole probably represents penis in the vagina. Now, that kind of stuff is EXTREMELY personal, and the gesture can get you into a TON OF TROUBLE. Do you see mature responsible grownups doing that? (No. Because it is so personal and obnoxious, that adults know it's a powerfully rude thing to do!) It can certainly get adults into trouble, too.

If someone did that gesture to make other people uncomfortable or nervous or threatened, then they made a terrible mistake and they need to apologize. It can be the kind of thing that a bully might do. Sex is personal. Penises and vaginas are personal. Don't make people sweat or nervous by making that gesture. It's just not right.

And then ask: Is this kid a good kid who just made a mistake? Or does he do this kind of thing all the time? [Then ask what else he does, and take it from there.]

+1. I like your response! Totally age appropriate and effective without overreacting.

+2

[Anonymous]

OP - talk to the bus driver and have your DC sit up front.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, you know that means "a$$hole" right?

I guess if you are gay, but it usually means sex

And yet the 5th graders I teach sometimesajr that gesture to each and mean "you're an asshole." So I guess they're really all gay. Or, you could think outside your box and communicate with some actual adolescents.

(For the record, no I do not allow it and I do talk to their parents about it.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 8 y/o asked me what "a finger in the hole" meant and when I asked for an explanation of that he showed me making a loose fist and putting his finger in the hole. He wanted to know what it meant and why the boy who showed it to him was laughing. I just told him that it was a crude and rude gesture and not to do it again, and that maybe this boy wasn't someone he wanted to be friends with. We dropped it after that, but I'm wondering if there is anything else I should do?

Yes, you should have explained that it was a crude gesture meant to depict the act of sexual intercourse.