Worried about 4YO obsession

[jeepjeep4]

I am getting increasing worried about my 4YO DS and his obsession with mine and his dad's feet. Recently we have both noticed that he is becoming aroused by feeling, smelling and rubbing both mine and my husbands feet and it makes us both uncomfortable but we're unsure how to deal with it.

Neither of us want to shame him if it's something that in later life many people have ('foot fetish' or similar )but all we feel able to do is say things like 'no thank you' and 'please don't touch mummy's feet' because it's quite unsettling as he's so young.

He does get upset when we ask him to stop.

Has anybody got any advice please? He's otherwise totally 'normal' developmentally. Neurotypical, no signs of anything such as autism which I've read can make this kind of obsessive behaviour more likely.

Any advice appreciated

Aroused? At 4?

Yes he gets an erection

My understanding of a fetish is a misdirection of normal sexual feelings - so something happens at a young age to make you associate, say, penguins and sex, and whilst the memory may be lost everytime you see a penguin you feel aroused. Over time and with reinforcement this can escalate to a situation where you only find penguins a turn on, and normal sex is not.

i think this is greyer in one so young because the line between “things i like doing” and arousal is probably a lot softer, it’s just an auto reaction to liking something innocently.

If it really worries you and isn’t just a phase, it seems obvious in one so young that a session or two with a trained child psychologist would help to break this link before it becomes embedded?