AIBU to not want anyone else to pick up my child?

[TwelveTwentyfour]

DH and I recently adopted toddler siblings and they're still attaching to us, having had two traumatic moves already, first from birth parents then from foster carer who they were with over a year, they're rightly unclear on the fact that they're staying with us forever, even if they've heard the words and can even repeat them. The problem I'm having is friends and even total strangers just pick them up and cuddle them without permission. Yesterday the youngest fell and hit his head- not enough to make him cry, he's very rough and tumble- but a guy walking by who clearly saw we were all together stopped down picked him up and cuddled him, HE WASN'T CRYING! I tried to keep my cool and said "pop him down please" and he ARGUED WITH ME! Saying "oh he really took a bump to the head". Another time we were all in the park and I tend to my distance rather than helicopter parent (after the awesomeness of Love and Logic training recommended by adoption agency), and a woman took my child from the top of a climbing frame when she decided he was too small to make it down (he always figures it out in the end) and swung him round making close eye contact smiling and cooing over him. I didn't say anything that time because while horrific she did put him down and he carried on playing and I was too angry and stunned to keep my cool and construct a polite or even coherent sentence. Fallout from this described below.
So my question is: Is this normal? Do strangers do this with other kids too? Mine are unusually cute and affectionate (not biased on this one, it's really becoming an issue ) but that doesn't mean they're teddy bears or dolls for the amusement of strangers. The big problem this causes is attachment confusion. Understandably, since we met them on a Monday and they were living with us by the Sunday. So they'll say at bedtime: "Mummy, is that nice lady from the park going to be my new mummy?" This happens a lot with all sorts of people who have just decided to pick them up and cuddle them! I'm constantly taking them off people. It's getting ridiculous. I can't quarantine them forever, they need to socialise and grow and play.
So...What should I do?! I feel like putting a sticker on their clothes saying "put me the f**k down, I'm not a toy!" Or a PA sign at the entrance to all our park crawl favourites saying "leave other people's children alone unless in mortal danger!"
Rant over, advice gratefully accepted. Xx

Perhaps it's an adapted programme, Boston. I think the "Incredible Years" programme has a special adoption and fostering version, so maybe this does, too? OP did say it advocated PACE etc.

To those judging my hissing, seriously, I must have a face that people ignore, or just live somewhere where people have no boundaries, probably both, but I tried all ways of getting my kid back quickly, and this is the most effective against the demographic who are guilty. I don't feel bad about it at all!

Bit horrified by this advice on their website too
Randy's wise mommy doesn't waste precious energy by warning, "Don't touch those things. Hurry up. Keep up with me. You're going to get in trouble. Stop it." Instead, she glances at him out of the corner of her eye, keeps walking, and finds a place just out of sight where she can watch him. He can't see her, but she can see him. Giggling, she watches him as he suddenly realizes he might be "lost." He looks around, doesn't see her, panics a bit, and begins to run down the aisle. As he turns the corner and sees her, she smiles and says, "Oh, good to see you," and continues walking. As she moves along, Randy starts to learn, "I'd better keep up with Mommy."

I'm pretty sure the free advice available on love and Logic sites is for secure attached and we haven't trained with that, the programmes been going decades now so covers mainstream parenting but the audio materials we purchased are for looked after and adopted children and really helpful, the evidence in our family so far is excellent and social workers are delighted with our progress, it's just this one area of strangers that I haven't had any input on so far so I'm glad to hear your ideas.
And no, we're not American, we're in UK, but Dan Hughes (PACE/PLACE) is American and that doesn't seem to be an obstacle to parents of trauma kids in the UK as far as I'm aware.

dimples - the more i read the more horrified i become.

twelvetwentyfour - can you post a link to the materials you were advised to purchase? or the training course your adoption agency put you on?

i've not heard of any other uk adopter using love & logic.....thats why i asked if maybe you were in the US OP......its a very unusual approach.

most people who adopt will reflect and sw have no real idea about trauma & attachment, and within weeks say to families - oh they are well attached now etc....they tell adoptive parents what you want to hear generally.

BKK, if I had a BC who had a secure attachment style I wouldn't play those kind of tricks on them.

TTF As far as possible I would keep yourself between strangers and your children. I stay very close to my almost four year old who became my son a couple of years ago including crawling around the soft play after him. I can tell some other parents think I'm OTT but I don't care and I know my boy enjoys it.

Strangers occasionally do try and stroke my son's cheek etc. (he looks very cherubic) when we are at and about but he tends to scream at them so that tends to get them to back off!

What sort of cunt giggles at a lost panicking child????

I have a BC who has the most wonderful attachment to me - would i giggle and smirk - 'that'll learn him' if he wandered off.....would i hell!!!!
what kind of crap is this? i am horrified.

The tantrum one and the 'kids walking parents in the night'
ones are properly bonkers!!

OMG, I'm aghast at that waking in the night one and I'm fully on board with pretending to be asleep mostly

Twelve I am still looking through comments. Excellent advice from bostonkremekrazy.

Here is my initial feedback on the opening post...NO you are not being unreasonable! Not in a million years!

I am afraid you must get tougher with total strangers who attempt to pick up your kids. The kids need to know this is not normal or right! To my knowledge no one has picked up my birth dd or adopted son without my consent.

The man who argued with you. You need (it if ever happens again) to be very clear..."Stop arguing with me and put down my son/daughter now."

The not so nice lady who picked your child off the climbing frame, I think put them back on the frame and a firm " I am supervising my son/daughter."

As others have said you need to be closest to them do no one else can get to them. Harder with two, I am sure.

I do think you need to helicopter parent a bit. Is there a reason you are worried to helicopter? You can also seek out places fields etc where there are no people and you can give a tiny bit more freedom.

Is love and logic American? Are you in the USA?

Where I live it is not normal to pick up other people's Kidd, not at all. If a child fell next to me I would speak to them, only assisting if mum or dad did not appear. I am in the south of the UK. I really don't expect anyone to comfort my kids unless I or their das are not around.

unless I or their dad is not around, I mean!

Agree with

Yikes no!

"Misbehavior in Public" this is like literally almost the last thing you should do, save for running off and abandoning the child in public or leaving them home alone or with someone not suitable. This is really bad advice for any child but for an adopted one, no way!

"Kids Waking Parents During the Night"
www.loveandlogic.com/articles-advice/quick-parenting-tips#night

I learnt in the preparation for adoption that behaviour is language, so you need to work out what the child is saying to you before you try and fix the behavior. The image I like best is a fountain, in full swing, the water comes from the base of the fountain, up the column and out in jets. The jets are the behavior we see, the column is the feelings the child have about themselves and the base is the child's needs. When the needs are met the feelings the child has will begin to change and the behaviour will too.

There are certainly lots of adoption friendly techniques one can use but these do not involve removing yourself from the child or he child from you, certainly not in the early stages.

Apologies you are not in the USA. It is not that things from America are not useful here, some are, but I'd never heard of this.

I was going to ask you Italian if you had heard of love & logic....i haven't and i've been around the block

has any other oldtimer?

I have picked up a stranger's child once before. I was the only adult in sight and a 3/4 year old came running around the corner, fell flat on her face, and started screaming. But I would never pick up a child if the parents were anywhere around.

Unfortunately some people are all too ready to interfere, and it drives me mad. DD is learning how to push herself on swings at the moment, but can't go very high. At the park on Saturday a lady pushing her child on the swing next to DD's suddenly reached over and gave DD's swing a shove with a cheery "here you go sweetheart!" causing DD to scream and want to leave the park immediately.

This link is interesting www.ahaparenting.com/parenting-tools/positive-discipline/Consequences_Punishment

I think OP it would help to explain the parentih style in relationship to not helicopter parenting. If you are able to, because I think the good advice above about avoiding busy times etc and more helicopter parenting would help.

And congratulations on your new family.

I don't know much about Love and Logic, but Foster Cline is a well known and respected author and writer in American adoption circles

Just looked at the L&L site and am rather shocked. PLEASE don't respond to 'tantrums' by pretending to have one of your own, the last thing he needs is to feel the adults supposed to be protecting him aren't in control, and aren't able to recognise his distress...

I'm wondering if Love and Logic is designed for older children with behavioural problems, rather than nearly placed toddlers .

I've not come across L&L either, and the little bits I've jsut read terrifies me! For eg, my securely attached, birth child vividly remembers the occasion when he got lost in a shop aged 3.5 and couldn't find me. (And indeed one of my own earliest memories is getting separated from my mum in a busy shop at, I guess, the same age. So traumatic that nearly 40 years on I can remember it very very well...) If I deliberately left my adopted DD alone in a shop, she would have a pretty much total breakdown - some days she can't even tolerate me going outside to put the washing out unless she can see me through the window...

Back to the OP, you do need to helicopter at this stage, both to preempt the entirely normal, well-meant interventions of strangers but also to be an ever constant reassuring presence for your DC. They literally cannot get too much of you right now.

If foster cline is involved in this book, I would be cautious. He has a very chequered history and has featured on quackwatch. His clinic, was based on attachment issues but he had a belief that "holding therapy" would create a bond. One of his mentored colleagues who practiced his beliefs put a child with attachment issues in a sack and her and the parent sat on her forcing her to experience a rebirth. When she couldn't break free and begged to be released, they told her she wasn't wanting it enough. 70 minutes later, the child was dead. Harrowingly, the whole thing was recorded.

Another treated in his clinic was found dead, strapped to a chai in his parents basement. It was punishment for his rage using a technique they believed endorsed by the clinic.

I've heard about "Candace's Law" which prevents therapists from 'rebirthing' etc following the tragic death inn the US many years ago.....but had never heard of Foster Cline before now

will add love & logic to my 'crap' pile

i'd still love to know which LA is peddling this though!

Comehomemax that is fucking terrifying

It's pretty grim.
I don't know a huge amount about love and logic, but my understanding is its very much a brand with lots of books, courses affiliated at a cost. As far as I could see, it's very much about teaching a child about natural consequences but in a way that I feel could be problematic for adopted children - e.g. letting them explore and problem solve for themselves to resolve a situation they get themselves into. Great for a secure child but pretty difficult for a child who doesn't know who his primary carer is and is much younger than their chronological age. It's supposed to teach resilience and self sufficient, positive behaviours whereas I feel the early months/years should be about staying very close and connected. I haven't seen a specific adoption related version but the mention of helicopter parenting could be an indication of its positioning.

Come home I ave trad of the case of the child who died during a 're birthing experiences. Very tragic. The whole tho g is crazy.