to not let complete stanger at party to lift/play with my daughter?

[holybatsh1t]

not sure if this is the right place to post, but need some advice/reassurance. went to good friends party recently, lots of young families there. dh mingling, i was watching dd4 and ds2 playing in garden. was sitting away from them (on my own!) but keep steady eye and just chilling a bit. looked back and saw dd being encouraged to walk up a mans body, eventually resulting in legs on his shoulders....this freaked me out. i acted calmly, walked over and made an excuse about getting more cake! - he however, sought me out a few minutes later to apologise if he had offended me. was i right to be so suspicious? would your partners interact physically with children unknown to them?

yabvu, you chose not to entertain your dc and someone else did. Are you normally that protective , do they go to nursery, palygrousp etc ?

Sassybeast - I've been sexually assaulted and even raped but I still think the OP is BU. And it's very, very sad that anyone feels that way about a man playing with her child.

And actually to make a link between sexual assault and physical play is even sadder.

oooh, sassybeast is sharpening nails to make this personal and irrelevant to op...

mmmm, wish i had the time hun, you sound like you're worthy opponent, but unfortunately i can't be back here until tomorrow...

good luck though in finding someone available

PS: so... ARE you a pigeon psycholigist? Coz I am a child psychologist. How did you get into that? which uni? Where did you do your practice? Sounds interesting....

be back tomorrow to get possible answers xxxxx

the answer is to never ever take your kids anywhere if there is the threat of other adults being present. This would not only include parties but school, shops, walking around generally....

very unreasonable reaction

Message withdrawn

You see, threads/posters like this are the reason when DD1 climbed up to sit on BIL's lap as they watched telly he asked me if it was okay for her to sit on his lap.
I nearly cried.

oooh mummygirl its you how are you doing by the way

i was just going to write something a bit more before i reaslised who it was. Will have to e mail you

I think YABU but it doesnt help with all the scare mongering and recent media coverage currently doing the rounds.
As already been pointed out sexual abuse is normally something that happens behind closed doors and by someone known to the child- IMO children that are allowed to have normal experiences with men develop confidence and if they ever experience situations that are potentially abusive may have more confidence to know that this is wrong and to speak out.
My dad used to always play with us and other children in our local park he used to play football, chase games and even wrestling! All completely innocent and he never once had any funny looks or people coming to remove their children from the situation (this was the 80's)

My son is a confident little boy who seems to prefer male company and loves physical games- I myself love to see him playing with his friends dads and others at parties e.t.c as he gets so much out of it.

We need to be careful as we are fast turning into a society where a man would be too scared to intervene if they saw a lost child resulting in the child potentially getting run-over by a bus!!

In fact there has been a case where a child managed to abscond from nursery and was seen by people walking alone on a busy high street all were too afraid to stop this child who later drowned in a pond. ( sorry cant find a link)
I have worked with sex offenders so do have some experience of this.

Excellent post at 12.59 Golda

Spicemonster - sorry you've been through it.I wish I didn't feel the way that I do sometimes but I have my limits and the OP has hers and I really don't think that she deserved many of the responses that she has had.

Mummygirl - And as for my degree in pigeon psychology, it's off the internet www.pigeonsarepeopletoo.com

The Lady Evenstar - I am sitting here shuddering after reading that . So glad you stopped him - it just doesn't bear thinking about.

Men who are prepared to get involved with small children are a gift to be nurtured, Young kids get so little interaction with men outside their imeadiate family and the attention/fun the children get from it is different to that from women.

OP, not at all unreasonable to ask, but next time be pleased your DCs are being entertained by a positive male role model. You were nearby and watching. No harm could come to them.

I am usually big on womens instincts as i don't think we listen to them enough but in this case i feel sad that you felt you had to take your child away when they were having fun.

No matter how many times I read this, I know I would have felt exactly like the OP i.e. uncomfortable about it. It may be just me, or it may have been incidents in my childhood that have made me like this. I wont dwell on this, but OP is entitled to feel how she feels about it. We are all different and a product of our unique experiences in life.

I also asked DH about this, and he agreed that he would amuse other people's children at a party as well as ours, but not a complete stranger's children and probably not as physically as this.

Its simply not productive to say FFS or make a personal attack.

I dont think OP is BU, whether the guy was a friend of a friend is irrelevant - she did not know who he was,so he was a stranger, and kids IMO should not get mixed messages about when it is/is not OK to interact with strangers/let strangers tickle them etc

someone DH has known for 25+ years is serving time now for child porn offenses. noone would have guessed it - and he played santa at charity Xmas do's for kids for YEARS

NOT everyone is a paedophile, but there ARE boundaries to do with personal space etc

not hard to say "whos child is this, am i ok to give her a turn"