Kids that touch everything and ignore their parent’s request not to touch

[notedbiscuits]

I was in The Range and the kid in front of me in the queue kept touching things and his mum kept saying don’t touch.

I hate kids that constantly touching things. Seen it where a kid has mucky hands the muck gets transferred to the white cushion she was touching.

I personally think kids under a certain age need their hands tied up before entering shops

It’s very hard to get children to stop touching, I say it all day til I’m blue in the face. I agree with the principle but in practise it can be very hard to get it done!

2/10

Just tied up? Why not just chopped all altogether?

DS, the little toe rag, once picked up a toy I'd told him we wouldn't b e buying, loooked me right in the eye, and LICKED It from top to bottom. We were standing at the tills. He was about 2.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

We bought the toy!

Having said that, I also get annoyed by ineffective parent sbnleating, "don't touch that" while doing nothing. I used to actively move them away (x 100 post the licking incident). I watched a toddler destroy a pot plant outside DD's dance school the other day while the mother wrung her hads and kepy saying, "darling, don't dig up th eplant, you'll kill it". The temptation to go over, pick up the toddler, and remove her from the vicitnity of the pot plant was HIGH.

You know adults touch stuff in shops to? Dont go to shops if you don’t like it. I would never take my kids shopping,it’s so boring - that’s what delivery is for.

I think the real solution to your problem is an enucleation.

I used to get one of mine to hold something like a teddy when we went to the shops. It meant they had less hands available for touching stuff.

Kids are tactile, they see the world through their hands a lot.

I get more pissed off by adults who have to touch everything in shops tbh.

Children learn by touch, taste, smell. It's natural for them to be curious.

While most parents will do their best, any intelligent shop keeper will put anything fragile out of reach of little fingers.

I would have LOVED to have tied my kids hands together when they were small. Preferably behind their back so when they ran too fast they fell over and landed on their face!

What a HOOT! 😃

My 5 yo touches EVERYTHING. It drives me up the wall. I don’t take her to shops at all. The last time about 6 months ago and I picked her up screaming half way through as she just couldn’t follow simple directions (stop running around and stop touching everything)

at home, she will just mindless touch everything. If I’m in the kitchen and she comes to tell me something, whatever is in front of her she will automatically pick it up eg a pen and start writing on my notes, any sunglasses left out, a glass/ mug, scrap of paper. It doesn’t matter what it is, she will just start touching it. Drives me mad and doesn’t seem to matter how much I tell her off, it’s a mindless action. She isn’t destructive, she doesn’t break things, she just has to fiddle.

Some children have a greater sensory need to touch things, often part of what is called sensory seeking behaviour. She maybe needs more sensory input e.g. interesting fidget, sth textured to carry around in her pocket to help her meet this need. This not a "mindless" action, it's her nervous system driving her to meet her need for tactile input, and can be part of what her nervous system needs to be regulated and know where her body is in the world. Lots of info available online about this if you search under 'Sensory OT'.

I’ve never forgotten the time a toddler with his manky, cheesy wotsit hands, touched my brand new mulberry handbag on the tube, years ago.

Yanbu, but kids touch everything. I am not the mum telling them to stop touching things.

My parents used to say look with your eyes not your fingers.

I dunno - the problem is inneffective parenting. If a child keeps doing something when you've asked them not to, you have to enforce it, or they'll just keep on ignoring you.

Yes, it's hard work, yes, it can be embarrassing (and yes, sometimes there might be some children, or some things, that you might never manage to stop) but if you're not firm, you definitely won't get anywhere.

I only have to get properly shouty once and whatever it is stops happening - and it's rare that I have to even get to the shouty part TBH, because they already know the tone of voice that says this one you need to just do as you're told.

Just to add, I had a 5 year old sensory seeker during the covid pandemic - he needed to touch things endlessly and it did not help my nerves at the time! Lots of anti-viral hand gel and trying to redirect the behaviour was the only solution at the time. He's still an inveterate 'toucher' and I can't tell you the number of splinters I have needed to remove because he just had to run his hand along that long wooden fence!

Its not always possible for 'intelligent shopkeepers' to put things out of reach. I used to work in a shop that sold crockery and glassware, everything we sold was fragile, intelligent parents either didn't bring their children in, or they watched them like a hawk, which is actually possible. As for the two year old who licked an item and his mother bought it, I would have bought it, washed it and donated it to a charity shop, I certainly wouldn't have let hom have it. Either shop online as a pp said, or watch your dc properly.

I can understand you havi8ng to buy it under those circumstances but surely you didn't give him the toy after that did you?

There is more to parenting than just ‘saying’ things though. Why can’t you gently take their hand and lead them away?

YANBU op. One of the only things that really bothered me in the whole covid era was the realisation that people are mingers when it comes to hand hygiene. And these must the same people I notice out and about they never seem to care about their kids are smearing their hands on the floor and then over everything else. I’m standing there horrified and they’re oblivious.

I never buy anything from shops that has been in easy reach of children. Grubby.

From memory, no, he wasn't allowed to to play with it for a while although he DID get it eventually. And years later, it was actually one of DD's favourite toys for a while. It was also HUGELY popular with visiting children and was regularly brought out when others came over. It was a fluffy bird that looked like a soft toy, but that walked around and they all absolutely loved setting it off to waddle around!

I was quite sad when eventually we had to donate it because we weren't using it anymore.

Yes. People need to control their kids. Sorted ✔️

forget children, it drives me absolutely insane when grown adults have to pick up everything in the supermarket to have a look before deciding if they want to buy it or not. I watched a woman in M&S the other day pick up about 10 packets of ham before deciding on one.

This is a really tricky one and I'd welcome any real solutions. If your child is a sensory seeker it is extremely difficult, almost impossible to stop. Repeating yourself or threatening 500 times won't stop and even if you do enforce punishments or have incentives they will still do it because it is impulsive. So the only solution is to restrain them. If you rock up to the range with a child in a strait jacket it won't go down very well. Buggies are fine but when your 4/5yr old is restrained in one to stop them touching you'll also be a bad parent for having them in the buggy. Swiping their hands away repeatedly works but then you'll be accused of slapping them. Avoiding shops completely is the easier solution but will meet judgment when the child has a massive tantrum at 7 because they never learned to behave in shops. You can't win. Fidgets help a lot but can be annoying for others too, and don't always work. Our OT recommend challenging DC with heavy lifting, so i would fill a basket with heavy items near the door that he has to lift using both arms and then put stuff back later, it helped a lot but no doubt people noted how I was abusing the child by making them carry my items. Its an absolute minefield if your child is like this.

I hope you put it straight in the bin after you paid for it?!!!

That's made me laugh.

But I had the 2yo who took the opportunity while I was loading the groceries on the belt to take a yoghurt from the trolley, shove his hand through the foil and shove the yoghurt liberally and enthusiastically into his mouth, face and coat. At least I was buying the yoghurt anyway, but it was a bit awkward to get that scanned!

I avoided shops with fragile things, and made good use of reins, wraps and trolleys to keep my darlings as close as possible.

I frequently had to be told to look with my eyes not my hands. I particularly loved to stroke the little loops of silky "hair" that showed the dye colours in the chemist.

Thank you @BogRollBOGOF Not everyone sees the funny side clearly