Would you find it inappropriate for a 5 year old boy to..

[Twiglett]

wrap his arms round your upper thigh and push his hand into your crotch? especially if he's only met you a couple of times but knows your child.

and what would you say?

The case I know of is pretty graphic. A toddler asking adults to do very adult things (think insertion) and screaming and screaming the place down and attacking when refused (because I suppose that was a rejection of love in the child's eyes). Horrendous.

Oh God baka I don't want to know - I want to continue living in my bubble wrapped safe world.

Twiglett I would have been mortified and speechless and just tried to silently extricate myself whilst looking like I was chewing a wasp.

The other mums really ought to be correcting this behaviour (in an appropriate understated way of course)

like nooka I don;t think I really understand what they did. A crotch in jeans is not really any different from the rest of you, iyswim - it's not like a distinguishable bit particularly. And assuming the kids are at thigh-hugging height I would just assume this was accidental (and that the mum probably didn't even notice). (am also assuming there's nothing wrong with thigh-hugging - that's just affection) Which is not to say that a gentle no wouldn't be out of place - young kids do tend to have little awareness of private space and respect for other people's bodies, (and a lack of awareness of their own bodies, by which I just mean they don;t always realise what they're doing with them) so a gentle no is just teaching them that.

My 3 year old DD choo-chooed a train up our church minister's leg, right across his groin and down the other leg at a garden party once

A 5 year old is normally taller than thigh hugging height. 6 year old ds1 manages to sniff chests easily. exactly hmc- hideous stuff, but leagues away from this. Kind of weird that the parents didn;t correct him- but maybe he does it so much they don';t notice. I can be bad at correcting ds1 when he chest sniffs as it is so normal for him

baka, my dd is very tall for her age (in 7-8 clothes), and does occasonally thigh hug. As I said she does this mainly to annoy me (or other objects of her affection) but it is definately not a sexual thing - just an irritating little girl thing! btw Twiglett would you have felt different if the child in question was a girl rather than a boy?