At what age range would a child be best acclimated to being a nudist?

My mom was a hippy and went through some phases, but I clearly remember something disturbing at age 4 involving nudity, but then again, I’m from the repressed Midwest, so what do I know.

As a teen, I also remember hating when mom changed in front of me, or wanted in my dressing room. Although with all of that, I have to admit, I have some issues with clothes myself…lol

Depends on what they’re going from to nudism.

An Amish teenager would have a significantly different reaction to it than, say, the child of hippies.

I don’t walk around naked anymore (more’s the pity) since my son is older, but he is often nude while in the house, and rarely wears more than a pair of shorts unless it’s cold outside. He and his father shower together occasionally and stuff like that, too. He’s not shielded from women nursing their babies or anything else like that. So if we were to become nudists, he’d probably adjust quickly. Heck, he’d just be happy to be allowed to not wear clothes all the time.

@KNOWITALL Going into a nudist colony when you were 4 would have been somewhat of a shocker or uncomfortable situation? Do you believe growing up as a nudist you would have adjusted to it, or grew up having ”issues” because of it? Do you think other 4 year olds would have embraced it quicker or less than you exposed to a nudist lifestyle?

There is really no way to answer this because we, as adults, don’t know a child’s point of view. We can think about our own childhoods but we generally forget what we felt as children. Unless, of course, you find adults who were brought into the nudist lifestyle as children.

I think a child raised in an environment where clothing was optional or at least one less sexually repressed would not notice nudity. I think this is pretty much a question with a Eurocentric bias.

Why would anyone even want to be a nudist? I don’t get that.

Because clothes are restrictive, uncomfortable, and in many cases pointless. And there are health benefits to being naked for at least part of the time – especially for your ladybits.

@Hypocrisy_Central I think if a child were raised to believe it was normal then had to go into a school with clothes on, etc…it would be confusing, and I would start to feel my family was ‘abnormal’. If it was a colony with a tutor, perhaps it would be easier to adjust.

I think I would have adjusted eventually, but just being around it on occasion wasn’t cool for me. Think about Adam and Eve, having no shame, enjoying the sun on their bodies in paradise, sounds pretty cool.

@Dutchess_III I hate clothes, think of the water bill savings, time saved. Hubs and I don’t have kids so we can be nekkid whenever, it’s pretty liberating really.

Why would anyone even want to be a nudist?
I should turn that into a question thread…...I may think on that. Thanks @Dutchess_III.

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@KNOWITALL If it was a colony with a tutor, perhaps it would be easier to adjust.
No matter how early one started or how long one stayed, or if they found a way never to leave the nudist compound, there is no way to insulate a person, especially a child from knowing there are people out there that do wear clothes. They may have to go to the dentist, a doctor, there is TV, magazines, etc. Then is comes back to what you said about how normal they feel they are doing and how normal or abnormal they feel people in clothes are doing.

Personally, I think introducing a toddler to nudity is the best time to do it, as long as the parents\guardians insure that the educational process continues throughout the child’s life, and is never imposed upon them.
If the child is expected to attend a public school where he\she has to wear clothing, then it is up to the parents to explain that they don’t wear cloths at home, and why, then explain why they have to wear cloths outside the house, and why.

Now introducing them to a lifestyle of nudity at an older age, might be easier, if they, the child, is rather prone to wanting nudity, or raised in an environment where it is acceptable.

I agree with most of the other posters in the idea that it all depends on the child, the family, and the cutler they are raised in.
It’s up to the parents to decide whether-or-not there child wants\cares about nudity, in my option.

@jtvoar16 It’s up to the parents to decide whether-or-not there child wants\cares about nudity, in my option.
From the impression I get around here, and it is just my impression, is that the parents are not the “buck stops here” authority, that if something is to be unpleasant to the child, even though not life threatening, if the child will not like it, the parent should capitulate, and not have the child to it or participate in it. If dad, mom, older brother, two younger sisters want to be nudist but the second older boy doesn’t, what should the family do, not be nudist to suit the boy who doesn’t want to be naked, or go and have him just be the odd boy in clothes?

@Hypocrisy_Central When I was a kid, all I wanted was to be ‘normal’, most want to fit in, so it may be one of those thing’s where location and community matter. We have a small nudist colony here that most people are unaware of, which is a good thing.

I live in a fairly typical suburban neighborhood. We have a mix of families, homeowners and renters on the cul-de-sac but only one family with small kids. They have three, all under school age and it is not unusual to see all three of them outside playing with the water hose nude while mom or dad are working in the yard, clothed. The youngest of them just cackles with laughter when he sprays his brothers. Not a single neighbor has made any negative remarks or comments about it; the only thing you hear is how happy the children sound and what a good time they seem to be having. I don’t think the kids will have a problem adjusting. I am sure they know that there are times to wear clothes and times to be naked. I say let them enjoy it while they can.

My kids were nakky all the time in the back yard, playing in the pool!

@rojo Not a single neighbor has made any negative remarks or comments about it; the only thing you hear is how happy the children sound and what a good time they seem to be having.
Nudity laws notwithstanding, the only reason IMO no one give a fart is because the children are perhaps under 6 years old. I bet if the children were between age 11 yr and 14 yr with at least one topless girl, she do not even have to be 100% nude, there would be some talk going on, if not out right complaining.

@Hypocrisy_Central I am sure you are correct with the majority of the people on the block I am not sure about the complaint part but for certain the talk.
There are a few that would not mind.

Myself, I was wondering at what point the children, at least the eldest, will decide it is not appropriate to run about nude and whether this will occur before mom and dad decide that it is time that he wear shorts.

We aren’t talking older kids. We’re talking < five years old.

@Dutchess_III We aren’t talking older kids. We’re talking < five years old.
That is the lynch pin, they are five or younger. I have been to public parks with a fountain in the middle of Summer on a very hot day. The toddlers are splashing in the fountain, then they are wet, then they are running about buck naked, no one seems to care. If it were a to year old boy and girl and they cooled off in the fountain then peeled off just their wet tops and nothing else; scandal and grumbling.

I think the younger they come to see it as a normal part of their existence, the less “culture shock” they will experience.

In my mind there is a period of time from the onset of puberty when the child has enough difficulties dealing with their own changing bodies and the insecurity that goes along with it that throwing a sudden lifestyle change such as becoming a family of nudists would wreak havoc on the psyche of the majority of them.

I can’t imagine people allowing their children to run buck naked in public. That’s just tacky.

@Dutchess_III I can’t imagine people allowing their children to run buck naked in public. That’s just tacky.
Apparently if they think it is tacky, they do it anyhow; more than likely, they don’t. Having their kids run around naked in a fountain in a public park I guess they rationalize it in their own mind, the kid being cooler, not stuck in wet clothes that will become muddy to if introduced to dirt, who knows, people can rationalize just about anything.

@rojo In my mind there is a period of time from the onset of puberty when the child has enough difficulties dealing with their own changing bodies and the insecurity that goes along with it that throwing a sudden lifestyle change such as becoming a family of nudists would wreak havoc on the psyche of the majority of them.
The family wants to go nudist for whatever reason and they have a 14 yr old girl, what do they do, cater to her feelings or the majority of the family? Do they let her go live with grandma, if she will have her? Boarding school?

I was at a birthday party for a one year old on Saturday. Some of the WORST behaved children were there, and the parents did nothing to curb them.
They had rented a room at a pizza joint. After the one year old had his cake he was covered with frosting. I had stepped outside and when I came in the one year old was toddling through the main pizza place, where a bunch of customers were sitting, and the kid was buck naked. He could have shit right there on the floor for all they knew. His mother and her family thought that was soooo funny. I thought it was extremely inappropriate. Don’t have high hopes for that kid’s future.

@Dutchess_III HoneyBooBoo even wears clothes…lol

@Dutchess_III Some of the WORST behaved children were there, and the parents did nothing to curb them.
Bad behavior usually starts at the top and flows down, or started at the bottom and the top failed to nip it in the bud.

Yip @Hypocrisy_Central.

Thank GOODNESS @KNOWITALL!