To ignore my three year old daughter when she says she’s a boy?

[Bullbreedbliss]

How do I approach this? Do I ignore? If I say she’s a girl she just argues with me. Am I doing damage by dismissing her?

Just say, oh really

really? I mean really?

My 3 year old grandson has been a dog on and off for a while. He asks for dog biscuits (animal biscuits).

She’s 3. Let her crack on!

My dgd, nearly 3, has been at various times over the last few weeks :
Spiderman, Fireman Sam, baby dragon, baby flower, baby tiger, baby Hulk, a spider, a dog, her brother, a princess and a ninja.
If you call her the wrong thing she is usually kind enough to laugh and say "I not baby flower, I..." but sometimes if you get it wrong it is a mega strop with real tears!
Oddly her brothers refused to pretend to be anything other than themselves at that age and insisted on being called by name - no nicknames or abbreviations allowed.
Dgs1 at Nursery came out in tears of rage because he hadn't got to dress up in the pink princess dress and had had to wear the yellow one and his friend, also male, wouldn't let him have the Fairy wings. When he was ill during his class a few weeks later his lovely teacher let him wear the wings home to help him feel better.
Other dgs wanted pink shoes and a sparkly hat at age 3 - he got, and happily wore, both of them.
Now aged 7 and 11 both boys are very suspicious of anything that could possibly be girly and refuse to believe they both happily wore pink when younger.

And I am a crocodile love. Snap snap I am coming to get you

turn it into a joke like the nonsense it is

Yes unfortunately 😔 there has been alot going on in the family, serious stuff and I think it's how she has dealt with it, form of escapism etc but I think its bloody weird tbh and I think the parents should parent to be quite honest!!! She only stopped wearing to school when school put a stop to it!

I’d say, “Are you? Why’s that then? I love to know what’s in their little minds.
I don’t think she needs to be corrected. She’s not going to think it forever (more than likely).

Treat it as a phase and adjust accordingly in the future if needed

Oh I like this too!

Yeah just brush over it. My 5yo ds is often a baby cat, or lately a frog. He knows that boys have willies and girls don't (he asked about his baby sister's missing willy). Apparently there's a group of them at school (reception class) who pretend to be cats, so must be pretty common.

I was a squirrel for a while around 6. Now I am an adult human female ;)

Yeah just ignore/change the subject.

Or ask what's a boy? Then when she says, for example, someone who likes blue, just say oh you like blue, yes blue is a lovely colour, then change the subject.

I'd ask why without making a big deal of it, but otherwise treat it like if she'd said she's a dinosaur. DS said he wanted to be a girl at 4. It turned out to be because one of the other boys at school had told him he couldn't wear a Princess dress ( he loved dressing up) as he was a boy. Told him it was absolutely fine and no different to pretending to be a firefighter or whatever, and he was happy.

My DD2 started saying this at a similar age. At age 4/5 she started to choose boys' clothing. At 7 she changed her name to a boy version of a shortening of her name. At 9 she had her hair cut short. At 13 she decided she wasn't sterotyped by gender. At about 16 she started to explore make-up and nail varnish while wearing gender neutral clothing. At 21 she wears a combination of feminine and gender neutral clothing, is happy to identify as female and grateful that we just went with all her choices while also taking a passive resistance approach to questions and suggestions from her and school about following a trans agenda.

You can let your DD wear what she wants, be who she wants without overcomplicating it.

My daughter was a dog at 3. A happy, well behaved dog that was fed under the table. She would pretend to be a little girl when we left the house. Grew out of it (as far as I know)!

She's 3😂

My son is a different kind of vehicle every 2 minutes.
"Mummy, I'm a red excavator"
Then we see an orange street cleaner drive past.
"Actually mummy, I'm an orange street cleaner like that one".

DS periodically tells me he's a girl. Outing here, his girl name is Girl Bob. I've tried the Willy conversation, he's adamant a d then other times he's not. He had an identical twin who knows he's a boy. I'm a girl, Nanny is a girl, he's just joining in. They both play with dolls and actually Girl Bob is more stereotypically "boy"

I’d tell her she’s a girl but it’s totally okay for her to do any of the things people sometimes say are ‘just for boys’ so she can wear whatever she likes and play with any toys and have whatever haircut she likes. I’d focus more on dismissing the notion of divided boy / girl stuff than on her idea that her sex is wrong.

My 3 year old said he was a cat, next week it was the gruffalo, the week after it was a poo.

kids say random shit- take it with a pinch of salt, don’t overthink it or overindulge it.
‘Wow, that’s nice darling’ is usually enough until they move onto the next thing.

obviously 3 is so tiny, it would be different if they were 15 and meant it seriously then my advice might be slightly different.

DD2 (almost 3) is frequently a ‘baby cat’. DD1 (5) still sometimes spends a whole afternoon refusing to answer to her real name as she’s Princess Sofia etc.

I’d treat it as a phase unless it continues for years and years. For now, ‘that’s nice darling, now it’s time to go to the park’ breeziness. In the meantime, read lots of books with girls as successful leads (scientists, builders etc) in case it’s a worry that girls can’t be strong etc.

I would ask her why? She may have been told that girls can be .... (insert job here) and she likes that job. Tell her girls can do everything (and better than boys) my dd is living proof - her job wasn't open to women until 8 years ago!

"Well you're not. Would you like fish fingers for dinner?"

As a few PPs have flagged, I think it’s worth working out whether there is a bit more behind this. Is someone giving her restrictive messages about what girls can do or what’s expected of girls? Perhaps reinforce the message that she can do the same things as the boys around her.

I'll add whenever my dc came up with things I said "that's nice darling, put your shoes on (or whatever) we need to go to Tesco etc don't over think

I was a dog at that age. I barked at people instead of communicating like a human. It didn’t last long!