Imagine your four-year-old son’s teacher pulling you aside and telling you that your son has been inappropriately touching her.
This recently happened to one mum and it’s led to a very heated discussion on Mumsnet.
The mum, who goes by the username MoanaMoanaMoana, said when she picked up her son from school the teacher asked her whether her son “grabs people and inappropriately touches them”.
When the mum replied her son doesn’t do that, the teacher said he had done it to the teachers at the school and demanded the mum have a talk to him about it – or she would.
"I spoke to my son at home and asked him to show me what happened, he said that the teacher was talking to another teacher and [he] patted me on the leg to try and get my attention," she wrote.
Top Comments
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I think people are going overboard with the term and destroying their meaning.
Inappropriate (when it comes to touching) is generally reserved for touches in a sexual place or nature. It is very VERY difficult for a four year old to be touching someone, intentionally, inappropriately. (Difficult does not mean impossible)
But it seems some people use it to also reference anything that makes them remotely uncomfortable. Sorry to say these people are a blight and need to seriously sit down and get some thick skin.
Not a single human being alive is capable of reading minds. Unless we TELL someone that something bothers us, they aren't going to know. I don't care how 'common' a particular distaste is. Nothing is universal.
Instead of being vague (yes I am making an assumption) the teacher should have told the parent EXACTLY what happened right from the start. Instead of using 'hot topic' terms followed by 'talk to your child'. Communication is important yet it is the one thing we fail to teach children, and fail to execute as adults.
We only have one side of the story here and the mother only has extra information about what happened from her four year old. I wonder if the teacher has a different version of events. It's pretty standard for little kids to do a whole lot of touching their teachers. I've had kids stroke the hairs on my legs when I haven't shaved recently. Once a child licked my leg to see if it "tasted ad good as it smells" I was wearing strawberry scented moisturiser. This is part and parcel of the job, you just speak to the child and move on. So for the teacher to mention something I wonder if there's more going on than is explained here.