I'm a male educator and there are times when parents don't want me touching their child. From what I understand, so far it's been a religious issues about men not being able to touch women.

There's no way I'm going to talk someone out of a religious belief by expressing the importance of physical contact in development. I'm happy to honour parents requests as best as possible but at the same tjme I'm also neglecting the child's needs. It breaks my heart to have to tell them I can't hug them when they ask and so far I've been redirecting them into hugging one of the female educators but it's not really good enough in my opinion.

What can I do to reach the best possible outcome here? Options not related to speaking to my director are preferable as turn over is high and I'd like to find a solution I can take with me that isn't centre dependent.