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?!

I also think that the more you 'feed' this with attention, the worse it will be as it may be attention-seeking behaviour.

Do the usual positive reinforcement of things over the day- when she does something good/nice/helpful, praise her and maybe even a reward. (But obviously don't say it's because she's not in 'cat mode')

When she starts the nonsense about being a cat, busy yourself with something and just ignore her.

Your last paragraph proves you're not getting this.

She needs punishing, not given the opportunity to raise money for bloody cat charities.

Tell her that you identify as a bed and then go and lay down and refuse to do anything until she sees how stupid she sounds.

oh come on. Punishing doesn't achieve anything here.

It's attention-seeking behaviour partly. So any attention - even a punishment- is a kind of positive feedback.

I'd ignore it other than a 'you're not a cat' and divert her attention to something else, like helping with the tea or talking about her day at school.

Reported

Why would you report the suggestion of a punishment? it's not breaking talk guidelines.

Why?

Nonsense. The child doesn't need punishing. She needs to be supported to move on from this silly pretence but punishing her will achieve nothing.

Wow. Please don’t do this. Kids need to be shown love whatever, especially through a divorce. I’d hope kids are loved if identifying as a different gender or preferring to act as a cat - punishment will drive them away, and into the very groups you seem afraid of.

My DD11 enjoys making masks and sharing with her friends, I enjoy the creativity! She’s less in to it this year, and now on to crochet, so nothing to worry about.

Do you truly believe this or are you just being confrontational for fun?

Either way this is poor advice, unless the OP wants to hurt and alienate her child, which she clearly doesn't.

Of course she doesn't need punishing. She needs guiding away from this in terms she can understand.

My autistic ds went through a short phase of this at about that age. Some girls(also autistic) at school told him something about them being cats and for a little while he was convinced it was a thing. Tbh I just did don't be silly humans can't be cats and didn't entertain it at all. He limped along with it for a few months but without adult money and adult support there is only so far you can get with something like that.
He is nearly 18 now and very much not a cat but it did strike me that all involved in this were the socially awkward autistic kids. They moved on from that to them all being queer, then some were trans etc. It seems to be a trying find your niche and fit in type of situation. Ds picked up a guitar and found his niche with the music nerds. I haven't read the full thread so don't know if your dd is autistic, how she finds fitting in with friends etc but my best advice would be to help her find some kind of healthy niche to be a part

That's child abuse.

I think there’s just actually a lot of it around at the moment. There’s an advertised ‘Furry Meet’ where I live and aside from those my kids see at school I have one friend with an autistic daughter identifying as ‘theian’ and making all the accessories etc. That’s separate to the creepy full grown man on a motorbike wearing his stupid and creepy furry mask.

Female girls are not boys.

So it's secondary school that she's citing as her source of inspiration for this. That's interesting. I'm not sure whether there really are schools out there humouring this BS, or whether it's a rarer phenomenon and the right wing media are whipping up a moral panic based on a few isolated cases. Whatever it is, it's entirely inappropriate. They're eager enough to enforce unbending uniform policies across the board elsewhere. Easy enough to cite that policy as a very good reason for not entertaining this fad.

Therian is not an 'identity'. It's a fetish - a very adult fetish - and there are growing communities of these fetishists online who groom kids. It's not a silly, ridiculous or harmless pose, it's deeply, deeply sinister. (This is also very much the 'Q'. It has little to do with transgenderism).

I'd be seeking other sources of support for my own 10-YO, who has been flagged as likely ND and is awaiting assessment, so this kind of thing is a worry. Also, like the PP upthread, I'm frank with him. It would be lovely to wrap him up with cotton wool and shield him from the evils of the world and the real dangers of the www. Unfortunately, as parents we can't. I'd tell him the truth about exactly what the problems are with this. And in your shoes, OP, there would be no access to anything other than rigorously supervised internet use - ie with me looking over his shoulder - until I was satisfied the phase had passed.

It's not appropriate for a child to leave the house dressed in adult fetish-wear. It would make them incredibly vulnerable. They are not cats. They are people, and baulking from telling them so is what's led to this ludicrous social contagion in the first place.

Distracting them through other activities is also good advice. Far better that they move on themselves than through spoilsport mum and dad's prohibition, if at all possible. But I'll be prohibitive if necessary. I'm a parent. That's my job.

There's 'trans' children who are barely in primary school.

I’ve not read all the pages here (long thread!) so apologies for any repetition but I feel like focusing on her feelings of insecurity/anxiety etc around the changes in her life might be almost more important than “fixing” the cat thing.

The feelings are likely to be the root cause, and the sooner they’re given support and acknowledgment, the sooner she can come out of this with some dignity and choice.

You mention school counsellors, which sounds like a great place to start, and maybe even some sessions with someone outside school could be useful. But with the focus on supporting her emotions.

I’d definitely feel like I wanted to ban social media and throw all the ears etc in the bin! But hopefully they’re symptoms of something and will recede by choice when she’s feeling more stable. Hopefully before she starts secondary school 🤞🤞

Good luck!

@MelodyMalone @Twistybranch @MrsBennetsPoorNerves

Yes punished. Like taken off social media, grounded, told off, made to break off from indoctrinated friends.

Do you think this behaviour is acceptable and do you think the softly-softly/do what you want approach has worked for this child so far?

There are going to be a lot of messed up adults sharing the world with us soon and I dread to think how this will pan out in society.

We need adults to take charge here, you lot should be absolutely ashamed of yourselves.

It's entirely possible, OP, that she doesn't really understand what "identifying as" really means. (Tbh, I'm not sure that I understand it yet myself!)

As far as she is concerned, it might simply mean "I like pretending to be a cat", which is innocent enough but obviously not something to be encouraged at her age!

She probably doesn't understand the phrase to mean that she thinks she can actually be a cat.

Unfortunately the adult world of this is associated with kink. The kids are getting it from somewhere and so are vulnerable if they’re not at least somewhat aware. Often the kids that latch onto this are already vulnerable - autistic for example - and so even more of a risk.

Also - on the just saying no thing - the whole thing is very much set up to be ‘your parents won’t understand you but we do…’ once they have online exposure to it, so it’s a fine line.

I didn't say they were.

🤣🤣🤣

well, her YouTube and browsing history are one thing. But she could be selectively deleting things, use private browsing mode or different apps. Or a friend‘s phone.

children can be incredibly good at hiding.
Especially if they’re told how to do so by adults or older children/teenagers.

She has, the OP claims, heard rumours about secondary school students identifying, plus the myth of the litter tray, so it sounds like she's aware.