OK here's a thing I did today that seemed perfectly normal to me and yet..... so tell me what your reaction is

[harpsichordcarrier]

I was in a ladies loo in a pub. I was waiting outside the cubicle and out comes a boy, probably 6 or 7, on his own. He said "Oh I forgot to flush" but it was too high for him to reach and I went in the cubicle with him to help. I started chatting to him, and reminded him to wash his hands (it had been a sitting down occasion ). Again, he couldn't reach so I got some soap for him and reached some hand towels for him too, and helped him to sort himself out.

was this appropriate?

Maybe he's only just started using the toilet on his own, and simply forgot to go the the gents instead of the ladies?

No matter why he was there, really. You did the right thing.

...I have four urchins, and just me to manage them, so it is quite frequent that an unaccompanied urchin might be sent to a toilet in a public place whilst I herd the others.

...on more than one occasion (to my knowledge, and probably a shed load more about which I do not know) small boys nominally in my care have sought similar aid from strangers.

I have been, and would be, nothing but grateful for the aid.

...and would have offered it, too.

It's a shame there should be any question about such a thing, really...

It's never occurred to me not to tbh. Have helped various children over the years.

I think I questioned it because I have recently moved from being a parent only to being a teacher as well, so being much more aware of how things appear, and conscious of oher people's sensitivities

If I was his mum I would have been very grateful, perhaps she was stuck with another child, or meal had just arrived and of course hand bag and jackets lying about. He can probaly manage at home fine.

It is sad that we do have to give it a second thought, I am helping out with the Brownies and leaders already getting in a tiz about camp, lots of rules and regulations, but it seems to be the overinterpretation of them that seems so crazy.

retiredgoth ... lost your log-in again???

...er, yes keep losing my log-in. That's it.

(or keep on deleting membership in vain belief I might than do the ironing etc myself instead of paying 'lady who does'.... only to get bored after kids abed)

I would be pleased if my ds had said a lady had helped him.

I had a similar situation once at ds2's tennis lesson. I was waiting for him while he had his lesson and chatting with another mum who I had spoken to a few times before so we sort of knew each other, but not very well. She was bfing her baby. Her 4yr old daughter came out of the class and said she needed the toilet. I just instinctively said that if the girl was able to manage everything herself I would take her as I didn't want the baby's feed to be disturbed. The mum seemed a bit confused but said yes thank you.

Afterwards, like the OP I wasn't sure if I should have offered or not.

Why do you think this might be inappropriate?

RG you can ask mn to ban your IP address for a while if that helps

Life's too short to do much ironing anyway