4 year old dd3 obsessed by strange men, please help

[ghostmous3]

I am really worried about this. Dd3 is 4 and is having some issues around boundaries re men. She gets obsessed and attached to men she has only just met. For example we went camping 2 weeks ago and there was a dad in the tent opposite with his 2 young sons and was friendly towards us all and dd would not leave him alone, following him everywhere, hugging him and had almighty tantrums if we took her away.

we have builders here on the house and one lad is lovely, chatty and pays dd a bit of attention like fetchingher teddy when she threw it out the window at him, chatting to him outside her bedroom window (they are on the scaffolding a lot) and he helped her ride her bike this morning. As a result she is obsessed now, I had to prise her off him when he was talking to me about the mess they had to make and its embarrassing for him.

Her behaviour is awful at the moment anyway, lots of tantrums, fury at not getting her own way, she constantly pulls at my clothes and wont stop. She pulled my top down at school the other day, she spits at me and her sisters in temper and squeezes and pinches my face when she feel like it. I told her teacher and they were oh i cant believe that, she is excellent in school, and her report reflects it, she really is good.

we have a very small extended family, i have 4dc and ds has autism and adhd and can be horrible towards her, her dad doesnt live with us and so she doesnt see much of him, she has no other male in her life apart from her brother and dad, no grandads, uncles, cousins. Its like she is fascinated by men because she gets no contactnwith anyone else apart from her dad and bro and they arent great at affection. Dp also has aspergers.

she would quite happily go off with these men, she tried to with camping dad and he brought her back as she tried to follownhim out the field, id spotted her at the same time running after him. What do i do, its scaring me really,

It seems like there are a lot of different issues.

A lot children are interested in random men, I think because they mainly interact with women (Mum, childminder, nanny, teachers etc.), but this does sound a bit extreme.

I don't know if there is much you can do other than talk about stranger danger (not just in relation to men though), keep a really, really close eye on her when out and distract her when you see she's getting too interested in a stranger.

Is there anyone in your life who she could spend a bit of time with? A male friend or something so that she doesn't have to attach to strangers.

Mu DS went through a period of being obsessed with strange men with glasses when he was tiny. I'm pretty sure that it was because he wasn't seeing much of his dad at the time. (His glasses-wearing dad was being an arse at the time, though he's shaped up since.) Happily, it wore off, though having him limpet to random men in the playground for a while was a bit worrying.

I think all you can do is keep a very, very close eye on her so she doesn't run off after any strange men.

Thanks, it is worrying. Thing is i dont have any male men to ask tbh, all my friends are female. Its got me thinking even I dont interact much with any male apart from dp and ds, the opportunity just isnt there, my df are mostly single mums.

so they really are a species apart in our family.

there is one man though, the dh of a good friend, he is married to my exs cousin and is the uncle to my dps daughters (its confusing lol) and he has been in her life since she was born and we do see a fair bit of them but she is fine with him, normal behaviour, healthily cautious although she will hug him if he picks her up.

Its the strange men she has issues with, its weird