Everyone’s Got a Bottom by Tess Rowley, was published by True – Relationships and Reproductive Health (Formerly Family Planning QLD), and is what I would call a first book for sex education in the early years.
By a first book, I mean that this book should be the first book that a family should think about buying on sex education and protective behaviours (keeping kids safe from sexual abuse). In the early years (ie before they go to school), there are a lot of similarities between sex education and protective behaviours.
Everyone’s Got a Bottom covers a lot of the age-appropriate topics that are recommended for younger children. You can find an age by age guide to what kids need to know about sex in this blogpost.
In the early years, sex education for kids is about keeping kids safe from sexual abuse, slowly introducing boundaries around behaviour and places, introducing rules about what is safe and not safe, talking about how our bodies differ but are also the same, talking about diversity and other stuff.
This book covers a lot of really important foundations for sex education. By foundations, I mean the stuff that kids need to know about first, before they are ready to start learning about the more complicated stuff, like how babies are made!
This book talks about:
- that the different parts of our bodies do different things
- that kids can choose whether they want to hug or kiss people
- that eventually kids can look after their own body eg brush own teeth, wash own face, etc
- that nudity is ok but only in certain places
- what the private parts are
- the difference between boys and girls (boys have a penis and girls have a vulva)
- that smaller kids may need help with washing their body – private parts included
- sometimes people like to be private and that is okay
- families have rules that are there to keep kids safe
- the touching rule means that nobody can touch a kids body (including our private parts) for a good reason
- it is not okay for someone bigger or older to touch or see my private arts or to show me theirs – that is rude
- If someone wants to do something that is rude, kids should tell a trusted grown up
- we don’t keep secrets about bodies or private parts – secrets are about surprises and presents
- we can talk about everything with our parents
Reading Tips
Like most books that are about body parts and sexuality, you will want to make sure that you look inside Everyone’s Got a Bottom first, before you start reading it to your child. That way, you won’t find any unexpected surprises! And you will know what to expect.
You can find some tips in this article on how to read ‘sex ed’ books like Everyone’s Got a Bottom.
As with most books for younger children, you don’t have to read every page and you can also change the words, if you feel that it is too wordy for your child (most 3 year olds would not be able to sit still for all of this book). I didn’t read this book word by word until my kids were about 4 or 5.
Everyone’s Got a Bottom is one of the books that every child needs to have in their book collection. The language and the content is very age-appropriate and it raises the opportunity for parents to start teaching their kids what they need to know to keep safe from sexual abuse.
It is the book that I buy for friends and my own family when their kids turn 3!