I'm scared to play / interact with other people's children?

When I met the children of either an associate, co-worker or even a close friend for the first time, I purposely don't talk or play with them for two reasons.



1) I'm afraid the kid is not going to like me



2) I'm scared I'm going to accidently hurt or upset the child and their parent is going to get upset at me.



It's totally irrational, especially since I teach second grade. I'm nice to my students and I joke around with them and stuff, but they make me kind of uncomfortable too.



Whenever one of them runs into me at the store with their parents, I always feel weird and wish they hadn't seen me.



What's wrong with me? How do I fix it?I'm scared to play / interact with other people's children?
If I were you I'd relax a bit and not worry about what other people think. There's nothing wrong with you. If you want you could check out a good counselor to work through your anxiety.I'm scared to play / interact with other people's children?
I don't think there's anything wrong with you except maybe you might be a little too worried about what people think of you.



Kids are kids. If they don't like you, then guess what--in 10 minutes they probably will like you again if you say something funny or give them candy. I mean, it's not like you're trying to impress the king or anything.



I would say just relax when you are around kids. Avoiding talking and interacting with your friends or co-workers kids might do just as much harm as interacting with them and making them upset.