More generally, I have been thinking about the "patting dog's heads" issue. Working in rescue I don't know how many times I have heard people assume that a dog that shies from being pet on the head or ducks or moves away MUST have been mistreated. "That dog must have been hoit all the time, it is afraid of a raised arm," is a really frequent comment.
But read a few dog books and you realise *dogs in general do not like to be pet on the head*. They will learn to tolerate it from humans (especially their own) because they figure, OK, we trust these two-legged things and even though I don't really care for this, they seem to want to communicate with me in this way." And dogs generally like to have ears scratched, chin or neck scratched or petted, etc -- or to be pet on the back of the head rather than reached for from the front. It is that reaching out for the top of the head that many really do not like as it is a threatening behaviour to the part of the anatomy a dog is most ready to protect that makes some unhappy. I have no doubt this results in many bites from nervous dogs or those just giving a warning and not intending anything worse.
The point (there is one! :lol: ) is that for the owner, one of the most embarrasing aspects of this kind of behaviour, including discomfort with kids, is that people assume 1) you (or kids in the family) might be mistreating the dog; 2) with a rescue or adopted dog even from a known source, it might prompt the wrong assumptions about the dog's background (and previous owner!!), which could affect training and even your relationship as you allow the 'mistreated' dog huge amounts of behavioural slack.
It is difficult when you have done everything by the book as far as you could and yet end up with a dog not too happy about very small kids, due to circumstances somewhat beyond your control. Julie like yours, my two rarely meet kids in a pleasant environment where they can play as I only have a couple of friends with kids and my one little nephew lives a continent away. :| So you can only do the best you can until someone creates a rent-a-kid scheme. :lol: (maybe that's called grandparenthood or babysitting... :lol: ).