Bad Habit of my 3 yr old

[nikster87]

I have a 3 year & 5 mth old son that has a bad habit of always grabbing and touching my 16 month old DDs hand. He has been doing it ever since SHE was about 4 months old. He likes to grab her hand and pull it up to his face and hold it by his cheek and squeeze it a little bit. It seems pretty innocent and almost like a 'loving gesture', but the last few days I noticed him doing it to a few other kids other than his sister. I don't know why he does this and it doesn't hurt anything except it annoys my DD (and the other kids he does it too). Has anyone else seen this? Is it something that will disappear over time. Any suggestions on how to get him to stop the behavior? Thanks for any help....

[amma_mama]

Given his age, perhaps you should try to redirect his attempts at affection, which should be encouraged under the right circumstances and, IMO, not labelled as "bad" (when I saw the title, I thought that is was going to be some gross but typical toddler behavior!). Explain that some children don't like to be touched like that - perhaps tell him that he can do it with Mommy's or Daddy's hand (as I think it is awful sweet), but not with others. For a while, my daughter became a hugger and kisser, which was sometimes met by a push or other negative reaction. I explained to her that hugging and kissing is very nice and that Mommy, Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa will always take them and to save them all for us.