I don’t know how concerned to be about this behaviour

[user1483387861]

My 5 year old DS is very tactile. He loves hugs and being physically close to me. He goes to sleep holding my arm and often comes into bed with us. He has however shown a lack of awareness about respecting people’s space e.g. during the first part of the school year he would go around ruffling kid’s hair and grabbing arms etc. This settled down during the second half of the year and he was much less manic.

However, there has been an incident today which has concerned me. We were walking home from the park and we passed a middle aged man who started talking to us. He seemed really nice, apparently he was a retired teacher and he asked DS a fair few questions about how old he was and which school he went to. DS when uncomfortable always starts talking in a silly voice which he started doing but he actually went and held his hand. I can’t remember if the man asked him too or DS did it of his own accord but this has really concerned me. I’ve had a chat to him this evening and had a bit of a “stranger talk” with him but I don’t know how much sank in. Is this normal for a 5 year old? How can I make him understand that he really shouldn’t do things like this without scaring him too much?

Sounds just like my DD she's 7 she would literally sit on your lap and talk as close to your face as she could if you'd let her, like your son literally no stranger danger about her even though they cover it in school all the time !

Ds was like that at 5yo. His year 2 report said "he will hug anyone who wants it".
He's 11yo and still gives me lovely hugs, but is much less inclined to even speak to strangers. We didn't do much on stranger danger. The line I always took is that people don't always want to be hugged, so you would only hug people you know well as it can be awkward if you hug someone who doesn't want it.

Mine was like that too. He outgrew and so will your son. He sounds like a lovely little boy.