How can I discourage DD10 from identifying as a cat

[Nocatsplease]

NC for this in case I get jumped on.

DD has just started year 6, and during the summer holidays she started pretending to be a cat. I'm going through a divorce at the moment, so at first I thought it was a bit of a childish regression as a response to all the changes, and just assumed it would fizzle out once she went back to school.

Unfortunately, she seems to have gone in the other direction with it, and is now saying she 'identifies' as a cat and spent some of her birthday money on a couple of masks and tails. Her dad and I have tried to mostly ignore and gently discourage it, but we've since become aware of the more sinister 'furry' connotations of this kind of thing. We're also both pretty GC, so we're definitely not happy about her 'identifying' as anything and want to put a stop to it. I've always had very frank conversations with her about how people may identify as different things, but it's not possible to change biology.

However, we have no idea how to explain it to her in terms she'll understand, and meanwhile she seems to be wanting to take it further and further. I'm also worried that if we give her a hard no, we'll end up pushing her even further in the other direction. I've already told her she's not allowed to dress up at school, and today while we were out another parent questioned her 'tail', which led to a conversation in which she told me that grown adults have called her 'furry' and growled at her in public.

That crosses a very clear line for me, so I ended up telling her that she's not to dress up in public any more because it's not appropriate for her age. The problem is she has NO IDEA of the more sinister connotations of what she's doing, so she doesn't understand what that means. She's currently in her room crying and saying she hates me and that I must be embarrassed and disappointed in her.

How can I explain it to her in a way she'll get and without having to bring sex into it?!

Thanks all.

My issue now is that she wants to pass the information along to her best friend 'because she needs to be safe too' I had to quite sternly tell her that not all parents are happy for their children to hear about this sort of thing and she wouldn't want her best friend's parents deciding they don't want them playing together anymore because of the odd things being talked about in our house!

Thank you. I wouldn't have been able to navigate it without the advice on this thread so I'm very grateful.

Oh no - it never stops does it? Again - well done for such a thoughtful response - not sure I'd have thought of that!
At the root of all this has been the ability of those with a sexual fetish to promote this to children online. We really need adults to be confident about establishing boundaries. To say "no - this is age inappropriate" and to do what you're doing - limit access to online.

Sounds utterly exhausting. Children don't need this stuff in their heads.

Maybe agree an explanation you are happy for her to share. Are there any resources she can be shown and potentially share? Or can you offer to speak with the school and ask if they can include info on this?

That's a really good suggestion re. speaking to school. I told her that she could tell her best friend that she'd had a chat with me and we'd decided it wasn't something she should be doing outside of the house anymore because it's not age appropriate. I told her not to elaborate any more than that. Hopefully she won't!

Wow, that is tricky, because of course she wants her friend to be safe too ! It does at least prove that she has really taken on board what you said. I think your response was a good one.

They don't, but unfortunately that's the world we live in, sometimes situations arise, and we have to help them navigate them as best we can.

I agree with this. If I had any notions of anything like this as a kid, my parents would have immediately put me straight in no uncertain terms and it would have ended before it had started.

Just read your update and edited appropriately. Well done OP

Yes the genie is well and truly out of the box thanks to the internet. But surely inspite of everything a parent has to shut down some ideas/ conversations before they even get started. identifying as a XYZ would be one of them.

TBF if she's watching ME I'd only expect her to start painting toys and being annoying.

I'd wage that most parents haven't got a clue about what their child is being exposed to on the internet, as this illlustrates. If a child has access to a device and they come up with an something and you have no idea where it came from, then 99% of the time they will have seen it via online content.

It's not really rocket science, it's right there under our noses that the rise in child and adolescent mental wellbeing and associated issues has rocketed in line with giving children access to the internet.

We lie to ourselves that our child is happily entertained watching baking videos in the other room we can have half an hour of peace, which is nice and always tempting, and because they're quiet they're happy, but if we are truly honest with outselves we should know better. If we do not 100% understand every app a child has access to inside out in terms of content, don't be suprised when they come home dressed like a cat, arms covered in scars from cutting, whatever else it is they've been fed without you knowing.

It's dark. It's convenient to pretend it's not happening, but you make your choice. It's literally right there under our noses.

Great update OP!

One tiny thing…don’t ask her how she’s feeling about the divorce! I don’t mean don’t talk about it, more don’t use the words “How do you feel…?”. All children answer that question “Fine”. Come at it from the side. When you’re doing something else bring it into the conversation eg when you’re tidying her room etc you could ask if there’s anything she wants to take to her dad’s then lead into it with something like “It must be really weird having two bedrooms…”. Ask any child if they’ve had a good day at school, they all say yes. Ask them if anyone fell over or got into trouble and they’ll end up telling you all the gossip.

You may already be doing all that in which case ignore me and carry on as you were!

Im afraid I agree with you. But when people are almost permanently exhausted, it's a tempting free baby sitter.

@eggplant16 I like to think I wouldn't use a babysitter who encouraged my children to harm themselves/dress like a cat/a multitude of nefarious bullshit no matter how free, this would not be tempting in the least. We are handing this to our kids on a plate and expecting them to be able to deal with it when most adults are addicted to their phones which is contributing to their permanent exhaustion in the first place.

It's right there, staring us in the face.