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I think adult teachers can BE FRIENDLY towards the children/students in their care but should not BE FRIENDS.

Where would you draw the line? (Starting from professionalism going to friendship.)

1) Teacher acts in a caring, friendly manner in the classroom and has no interaction with students out of school.

2) Teacher chats on facebook with students who feel more comfortable sharing their problems with their teacher than their parents.

3) Teacher chats (random conversation) with a student on facebook after midnight on school nights.

4) Teacher spends time alone with a student out of school but the child's parents are happy about it.

5) Teacher tells student they love them and wishes they could be together.

Am I wrong to have tried getting my teacher friend to take their level 4-5 relationship back to level 1-2? Both the teacher and the student in this situation have told me to stop interfering and they say I'm reading too much into it. They say they're happy, the child is willing to ignore the attraction of the adult and the child's parents are happy (they don't know about the attraction).

Would you let the teacher and student continue their friendship?

I would really appreciate some opinions on whether any or all of the situations below seem wrong to you. More importantly I would like to know what you might do in my situation to help both my friend and the child in this situation.

I am an adult and my adult friend has become close friends with a child who we know from a professional setting.

The adult and child communicate regularly via the internet either on computer or phone, including during work/school and late at night.

The mother of the child knows that the adult and child communicate via the internet late at night and has asked the adult to restrict their conversations to before 10pm on school nights.

The adult and child have met face-to-face outside of the professional setting, just the two of them, a few times.

The mother of the child is aware that the adult and child are friends and that they have met alone face-to-face.

Up to here I do not believe that the child is being psychologically harmed in any way but I think my friend needs to give the child some space rather than communicating so regularly.

Now to my friend's character and intent.

My friend is a male, attracted to males but more specifically appears to be attracted to young boys.

He has stated that he is not involved in the professional setting in order to meet young boys and is well aware that his friendship with the child could be "taken the wrong way" and he and the child could be suspended from the professional setting if he was reported for abuse.

He fears that people might see him as a paedophile who wants to take advantage of young boys but that is not the case.

Some of the things that can be "taken the wrong way" are as follows:

The adult is regularly praising the child in their chats via the internet but just "you're awesome".

The adult has told the child that he loves him. This makes the child feel awkward.

The adult claims that it is not a sexual attraction but when I asked the adult if hugging the child would give him 'butterflies in his tummy and a funny tight feeling in his chest like his heart is about to explode', he reluctantly admitted it would. This is not a professional relationship and I think my friend has put himself in a dangerous situation.

My friend says that it is not unusual for him to feel that sort of emotion when hugging someone of his gender (and I can only assume it is just when they are young and male) but he feels no emotion when hugging me because I am neither of these things.

The child has indicated that he finds it 'creepy' that the adult gets sexually aroused by wrestling with his younger male cousins who are about the same age as the child.

The adult has told the child that his password on his work computer is the child's name repeated twice.

The adult has told the child that he wishes the child was gay, attracted to him and not a part of the same professional setting.

The child is concerned that the adult does not see their age difference as something that would need to be different in order for the situation to be okay. Adult is 23. Child is 13.

The adult told the child that he loved him only a few days after the child's uncle committed suicide. This is where I started communicating with the child (via the internet). The child was upset and confused by his uncle's tragic death and feeling further confused by my friend telling him he loved him then not listening to him about his emotions regarding his uncle's death.

The child did not want the adult to visit his house and talk to him but the adult visited and spoke to him anyway but did not address any of the child's emotional distress regarding his uncle's death nor his school situation involving other students bullying him and spreading rumours.

As you can see, this is not a neglectful or violent form of abuse, nor does it involve put-downs or making a child feel worthless in any way.

If a child feels awkward and pressured by an adult telling them information they don't want to know (like that the adult loves the child), is this abuse and does it need to be reported?

In writing this I think I have painted the picture to be worse than it actually is but it is probably just because I have not added the human aspect that my friend is a wonderful, caring, loving person. I believe it is not his fault that he is attracted to males nor that he appears to be attracted to young males but I really think he needs some help and guidance so any suggestions are welcome.