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've just been telling DP about this post and he reminded me of something. A few years ago at the end of the summer holidays, DS burst into tears out of nowhere. When asked what was wrong, he pointed at one of the cats sleeping on the end of the sofa and said it wasn't fair that cats didn't have to go to school and could just lie at home and he wished he was a cat. He was about 7 at the time. Could it be a similar appeal that she's having, something about a cats life she thinks is so much easier?

Oh my gosh I can't believe people believe this ...

If OP's kid is pretending to be a cat who cares? Freaking out and making this a trans thing is absurd.

She's 10. If adults are going to sexualize her because she has a tail and cat ears than that's on them. She doesn't need to know about furries.

I love how people are so freaked out about this being related to trans issues and destroying kids innocence, and their solution is to explain a sexual subculture.

She's pretending to be a cat. She presumably still talks and goes to school. She'll outgrow it.

The whole litter box thing is such an urban legend to hate on trans people. No teenagers want to get half naked and shit in front of everyone.

Be a GC as you like, but if a ten year old pretending to be a cat makes you think OP should throw out all her cat stuff, feed her in a dish on the floor, send her outside for night you have serious freaking issues.

If her friends think it's weird they'll tell her and she'll likely stop.

It doesn't mean she'll be expecting to shit in a litter box at high school.

Ironically kids can't be kids anymore with this much paranoia.

I think this sort of behaviour is inappropriate and misguided, and the OP's dd needs to be guided away from it, but I don't think she is doing anything naughty and punishing her would do more damage than good imo.

Why on earth should I be ashamed of myself for not advocating that the OP should parent in the draconian way that you suggest? I think your approach sounds ridiculous, personally, but it does help to explain why so many of my dd's peers had such dreadful relationships with their parents as teenagers and ended up rebelling against them. I took a very different approach with my dd, and I'm more than happy with how she turned out thanks.

Yes. The rainbows and unicorns 'family' who truly care about them more than their own parents, who are just out to spoil their fun and ruin their lives. Who is most likely to have their best interests at heart.

They are whole online communities grooming kids into viewing them as their alternative families. This is exactly the behaviour of a cult. It's dangerous and it needs to be seen as such.

This needs nipping in the bud, because it's just ridiculous. You must talk to her very calmly and seriously that this has now got out of hand.

OP has quite clearly said she's using the term "identifying as" which comes from one sub section of society! It's not being blown out of proportion all. She is not just randomly role playing as a cat like little kids do "mummy look at me, I'm a cat" OP has said herself it is gone beyond all of that!

I think it’s healthy for a ten year old to play make believe especially when real life is stressful. I’d let her wear cat ears out but no mask and tail and talk about why. I’d let her craft cat accessories but not buy more. Have the uncomfortable conversations about bad adults. But also spend some time doing imaginative play, all kinds of dress up - animals, super heros, fairies. Work on enjoying imagination vs identifying without going on a rant that she thinks is everything phobic and shuts her down.

Let her act a few years younger at home while she copes and encourage her to act age appropriately out of the house

This. The cat thing is a distraction. How does she feel about the divorce?

The answer is nearly always to spend more time with them, even more than you think they will want, doing stuff they enjoy and that you enjoy. Lots of creating, board games, walks, movies - she's wanting to know she's secure with you, right, post separation and when adolescence is looming. You don't need to decide anything about who you are, you have always been you and you have grown and changed just fine so far, and you will continue to grow and change but you'll always be you and we'll always be here. Give her some guard rails. Dressing up as a cat last week and a pumpkin for Halloween next week, fine, getting obsessed about cats or making cat noises is unhealthy and a bit tedious and annoying. Do some exploratory playful talking - list favourite food, favourite band, singer, film, language, musical instrument, country, and yours, name lots of things she likes and is interested in that make up her. Don't react either negatively or positively to the cat stuff, change the subject and praise her up and give attention to the non cat stuff. Get her involved in chores and learning lots of life skills, get other adults in the family to rally round and spend quality and quantity time with her. Pick up on what might be the underlying worries or fears (I'm not good enough, I'm going to secondary school, being a girl in adolescence sounds awful so I'd rather opt out). Some really good old fashioned books or films about girlhood might be fun, I just watched a really old Anne of Green Gables and it was very good.

I bloody love Anne of Green Gables! Who would want to be a cat when you can be a girl?!

It surely have a lot to do with the divorce- it's a coping/ escape mechanism for her- if she's a girl she needs face all kind of traumatic situations (even though you think it's going smoothly), as a cat she doesn't need to face those feelings.

This ^

Try to work out WHY

And then I think I'd explain the sexual connotations of what she's doing and showing to adults , when she pretends to be a cat

How it could be quite a dangerous choice to make

Does she have Spotify OP? A family member had this with her daughter and found she'd been listening to loads of Therian stuff on Spotify (because why would you restrict a 10yos access to music). A lot of it was of the sinister 'don't tell your family, they won't understand you, we're your family now' stuff. Massive safeguarding red flag, won't necessarily come up on internet history.

This is really interesting. Yes she does have Spotify and it's not something I've ever thought to check. I will be doing tonight, thank you.

It's not really uncommon. Both my kids have others in their class who say they are trans, one was a girl all through primary and rocked up to high school 'a boy' with a different name.

@sunflowersngunpowdr what are you on about, giving your own kid lines?!

Remove the toilet roll and tell her she has to lick her bum clean.

Does she have Spotify OP? A family member had this with her daughter and found she'd been listening to loads of Therian stuff on Spotify (because why would you restrict a 10yos access to music). A lot of it was of the sinister 'don't tell your family, they won't understand you, we're your family now' stuff.

I really think anyone caught saying these things to impressionable young people should be on some sort of register.

They are a clear safeguarding risk.

"punish" no but a few firm words, yes. Why on earth would anybody let a 10 year old buy a cat's tail?

I'd agree with taking away access to TV, Internet, put out cat food for dinner etc.

Uhm.... that sound a bit messed, op don't do this.

Best option is to say if you want to dress up and act as cat like pre-schooler, I will treat you as a pre-schooler, early bedtime, no to her usual Tv programs, take her to pre-schooler playground, get her pre-schooler clothes.
Thanks to the poster for 🚩Spotify.

I think you've underestimated the insidious sophistication of "identity" ideologues. The campaign's been going on for a long time, with seemingly bottomless funding and influence. One of the sources is a transhumanist foundation, which ties in with the interest in animal identities as well as other-sex or neuter, age, disability and race identities. This also encourages acceptance of body-altering treatments.

Children whose parents simply deny their "identities" have access to a multitude of resources telling them their parents are toxic, giving them language to argue their case and, ultimately, support to leave their families for like-minded communities (run by adults with worrying agendas).

There are some really nice books on Amazon for therian-identifying children, just as for trans-identifying ones. The Web's awash with the stuff. Schools teach it as part of PHSE. @Nocatsplease, I'd recommend caution with the school counsellor as s/he may have bought in to a policy of unquestioning "identity" affirmation 😟

I know I sound a bit like a conspiracy theorist! Some conspiracies are real. I've been following this stuff for nearly 20 years - and am old enough to remember the PIE scandal, which was also dismissed as scaremongering while kids were being sex trafficked in plain sight. A whole smorgasbord of "identities" is bubbling away, all of them founded on sex fetishes. It's unwise to treat as no more than a passing fad, imo. Not long ago, people said that about genderism.

I'd explain to her that what she is doing is akin to cultural appropriation and is disrespectful to animals. If you are able to, say that cats are amazing animals and it would be totally rude and preposterous of humans to self identify as cats because humans have a different biology and therefore perceive the world differently. You may wish to say that as mammals we have come things in common and go down the science route if she finds it interesting. If she finds to boring, all the better.

Frightened to give a hard no?

Why? Your child is doing something abnormal which has gone behind playing dress up.

Take the cat stuff away and bin it. No phone and no social media and no unsupervised access to social media.

If the talk about being a cat persists tell her that cats don't wear clothes so she'll have to go outside naked and of course only way cat food.