To ask this person to stop 'ruffling' my DCs hair?

[FeatherySquawkington]

We go to church on Sundays and one man always insists on ruffling both my DS's hair. I hate it, it makes me cringe. How do I ask him not to without sounding rude? At the moment I use avoidance tactics e.g put hoods up or try to slip past as quickly as possible but not always successful.... (I understand this sounds a bit petty but it does really bug me!)

Next time he comes to do it, put your hands quickly over their head to block him and laughingly say 'oh sorry - he doesn't like that!' Hopefully, that will do the trick.

Come on.... he clearly does it as a sign of a friendly greeting. Probably a generation thing. When I was little it happened to me and I can tell you it hasn’t affected my life and I’m not mentally scarred. In fact only just remembered it when I read your post. If it bothers you though, then you have to tell him, but accept that he may feel awkward and avoid interaction with you or your DCs in the future. As long as you’re happy that that may happen, then crack on.

@cacklingmags it’s good to teach children that if strange adults touch them and it makes them uncomfortable they should tolerate it. WOW

I would put up with it, its just a small annoyance and it is good to teach the kids to be tolerant and kind.

Well you can teach kids to be kind and tolerant without enforced physical contact.

What a ridiculous thing to say.

I get it, I don't like it when strangers touch my child either but a lot of people don't realise that it's an issue as he probably doesn't think anything of it either, just politely tell him to stop, if it carries on then be more firm next time. Do not get your child/ren to do this for you or say it's because they don't like it, that would be pretty crappy of you!

When he raises his hand next time, just tell him the the boys are old enough to shake hands now and get them to stick their hands out too.

Personally I would add something about not touching the boys up. But I am the person that made MIL cry when I told her that anxious DS 'Did not cope well with strangers' when DHs brother wanted to spend time alone with him.

You know what maybe they don’t want to shake his either a simple hello would do.

*shake his hand

I’m really shocked that so many people think it’s better to teach children that they need to tolerate an adult touching them in a way that they don’t like, just in case he’s lonely, or they appear unkind, or unfriendly, or because it’s not Christian or because it’s a perfectly innocent gesture. All of those things are completely irrelevant. It doesn’t need to be something nefarious for you to step in. The child has said he doesn’t like this man ruffling his hair. That’s enough.

I think it's quite silly to equate something like this to child abuse or paedophilia, which I presume it's what you're doing.

@Gwenhwyfar - if you think it's "silly", why don't you contact a child protection or safeguarding officer, & talk to them about how it's not necessary to teach children that they are allowed to have bodily autonomy? You'll soon be straight.

Nobody is saying that church man is a child abuser.
They are simply maintaining the childrens right not to be touches, They don't like it, their mum doesn't like it ... I'm quite sure YOU wouldn't like it done to you. The fact that OP's kids are not adults does not mean that they have to put up with what feels like a physical instrusion to them.

sorry - you'll soon be PUT straight, that should have read.

It's a slippery slope of grooming children not to have boundaries. This guy may not be a predator, but what about the next one or the one after that?

You also teach a child that violating other people's boundaries and not asking for permission is how it's done. What do you think they'll end up doing once they start dating? They'll either get taken advantage off or abuse their partners themselves.

You need to nip this toxic dynamic in the bud.

Haven't read the whole thread since my last comment but I was the person who said it was a slippery slope and I see some people took exception to that.

I'm not saying the hair-ruffler is a paedophile. It's statistically unlikely. But people who are so sneery about anyone raising concerns about this are really naive. Do you think that anyone who wants to mess around with a child goes round with an "I'm a paedo" t-shirt on? Or that they go straight in to touching private parts as soon as they get a child alone? No, they work precisely on breaking down boundaries and every single parent should be aware of this and be aware that paedophiles also need to ensure that the parents of the abused child are either unaware or "on board" because they have built up trust with them -- often by doing the very slightly inappropriate thing in the presence of the parents so it seems like the parents condone it.

I lived with this for the first 13 years of my life until the paedophile in my house was eventually investigated by the police. He had got away with what he was doing for years before precisely because the parents of his victims wouldn't have believed that such a lovely, friendly, helpful person would do such a thing.

To reiterate -- OP's kids are long way off being groomed. But this will be a good lesson for them to learn if she stands up for them. Even if it's a bit awkward or embarrassing.