The product of a conservative Christian upbringing I was late to the party when it comes to nudism. Given the chance I would have taken every opportunity to be naked and now regret that in my 30s it would not be permitted to do so in many situations where I could have in my youth. I don't have any children yet but my wife and I are working on it. I already know that I will encourage their nudism and blatantly live vicariously through my kids. Personally, I love nude beaches and the like but find it absolutely exhilarating being naked in places where it's not really allowed like a non-nude beach. I wouldn't in say a shopping mall but somewhere where I can make a decent case for it if confronted like it's ok in some countries or I thought this was a nude beach and so forth. I wonder if I'll push the envelope with my kids encouraging them to be naked in the public pool, the park, the shop by the beach or other places where they could get in trouble or if my protective instincts will nullify all this. What do you think?
I’m always a bit skeptical when children should catch up things their parents did miss. But anyway, I guess such things you can hardly plan. You just can have an attitude to be open for and give your kids the opportunity to try out things if they like to. You can educate your kids to be open minded, but you can’t educate them to a certain lifestyle etc., as they are discrete personalities. When my godson was in preschool age, I did spend two camping holidays with him and his mother in south France. The first stay was at a textile camping next to a nudist beach, and the boy was enthusiastic about going naked at the beach and was craving to go nude at the campground too. As no one seemed to mind, we did let him do and he was happy about it. So the next year we booked at a nudist camping, as we thought this would be great for him. But actually, he preferred to wear jeans shorts then most of the time (until finally in the last days of our stay a girl he befriended with convinced him to go nude). So you never know!
For a preschool child, a year is a long time (20 percent of their life so far!) so it's not surprising that your godson had different ideas one year versus the next. Children can't comprehend the world, so they find "rules" that they impose on themselves, to try to make sense out of things. Years ago, I went to a nude beach with my sister-in-law and her son--my nephew, but my brother stayed elsewhere with their older child. As we walked along, I asked my nephew if he noticed anything different about the people on the beach. But he was intent on looking down, and he just said "Footprints". We told him that in that place, you didn't have to wear clothes, but his rule was "We're at the beach, so we wear a swimsuit". Fortunately he only applied that rule to himself! I can't imagine what the effect of a naked child would be at an American campground. A chat with the police, very likely.
