My four year old grandson loves to touch people's ears! He's very gentle about it, and doesn't inflict any pain, however, it seems a little quirky to me. We do not encourage it, but his mother says that during quiet time, he will grab her ear and massage it. He doesn't suck his thumb, or have a favorite blanket....only other people's ears!! Is this normal??
It is nice to hear that somebody else does this. My 2 1/2 year old son loves to touch ears. Whenever he is tired or stressed he folds and holds his own ears. When he is sitting with someone he will reach up and either gently massage or just hold their ears. For some reason it is comforting to him.
My daughter still at 4 years old liked to "rub your soft arm". This means she would very gently caress the inside of your arm between the elbow and wrist. She even got to a point where she was scoping out arms and was excited about other peoples soft arm and not interested in anyone's arm who had fur on it, because it wasn't a soft arm. She only did this to those she was close enough to, so Dad, Mom, and big sis, but not her Aunt who she is next closest to. This drove the other two nuts and they would run from her, so I would let her if she was tired and needing comfort. Her Dad would come down stairs in a T shirt with a sweat shirt over his shoulders. She would ask if it was so she couldn't rub his soft arm and he would say, "Yep".
She seems to have grown out of it (now 5) and most often did this at cuddle time or when she was tired.
She nursed and then sucked her thumb...still a thumb sucker. I would rather the soft arm over the thumb sucking.
Just something to play with that he probably subconsciously associates with nursing or cuddling. I had a girlfriend whose daughter loved to play with her mommy's hair when she nursed and, eventually, started playing with her own hair and other kids as well. It was simply comfort by association.
My son did the exact same thing. He couldn't even fall asleep without massaging someone's earlobe. When no one else was around he massaged his own. When he was about 3 years old, I asked him what he wanted for Christmas. He replied: "I'd like to get an ear that is as soft as yours, but that I can take with me". I thought that was an odd request.
He's 8 now. He no longer massages ears, but once in a while I still see him holding his own ear when he sleeps.
Don't worry about it.
Oh A., when my son was 4 years old he was obsessed with pantyhose!! He loved to run his hand over my leg when I had pantyhose on. It didn't bother me and his pre-school teacher learned to "fend" him off. It was really only a problem in the check out line in a store when the customer in line in front of us would have pantyhose on and he would ever so slowly sidle up to this poor unsuspecting stranger and try to pet her legs.
I would gladly have had him massaging ears instead - they are much harder for a 4 year old to reach than legs!!!!
I agree with Theresa, that this is a lovey. And a self comfort mechanism. He will outgrow it. So don't worry about it. He sounds like a normal 4 year old.
Very normal...my brother used to do that to my mom's ear all the time..
My husband did the same when he was little never out grew it but my son statrted when he was a baby now 18 outgrew it long ago
Hi A.,
If it's just something between him and mom, and she doesn't mind, it's fine. If he does it to other people, I would reprimand him (well, his mother should). At 4, he is not a toddler so he is capable of understanding that it is not okay to do it to others,who may not enjoy this and old enough to learn about appropriate touching, but that it's okay at quiet time with mom. In that way, it's no different than the child who strokes his mother's hair to calm himself
My youngest brother this did this too. He actually liked both ears and bottoms (!), though he had to be taught not to squeeze people's bottoms (because it's obviously socially inappropriate), no one ever worried about the ears and he simply grew out of playing with them. He's now a normal adult.
I agree that this is a self-comforting mechanism and lots of kids do similar things.
Hi im am not a mother but this is the only place i can find someone with the same problem, i am 14 and for as long as i could remember i loved to rub my and others ears even my own dogs ears! I cant stop doing it, it is a good stress reliver but i get my family members yelling at me telling me not to do it, my mom always told me that it would go away once you grew up but now im starting to get doubts about it
