Yes... With us it happens with her grandpa from her father’s side. She only sees him once a year, and he wants her on his lap! She used to run away from him and tell me he was scary. She would hide behind an armchair or a table or just cling to me to avoid him. I think most older people don’t realize that they can actually look scary to kids when they don’t know them well.

I had to protect to my daughter like that, teaching her since she was 2 or 3 that she CAN say “no” to any adult when it comes to touching. And guess what... along the way, many people (including her direct relatives) have said to me that I teach her to be cold and disrespectful ! Now that I’m thinking about it, I might have overdone it at some point, but that only happened because she cried to me or looked emotionally damaged after several situations of unwanted (and scary) contact.

As for strangers... I reserve the right to be rude to them. I clearly remember one day when my daughter (about 3) and I were in the grocery store. She was riding inside the shopping cart, and I was taking some product out of the refrigerator. Before I could do anything, some man approached, eyed my child intensely ( like he wanted to eat her!) and pinched her cheek. I was so shocked at that moment that I couldn’t even tell him anything, and he just left after a couple of seconds of holding eye contact with her. Since then I have been like a hawk, watching every big person (man or woman) and their moves... and I realize that to non-parents this may sound paranoid ) But it is what it is