Child identifies as a wolf ... WTF?

[Portakalkedi]

Just on Radio 4 now, discussing a child in secondary school who identifies as a wolf, and the school is going along with this. AIBU to think the world (or at least the UK) has gone mad? If said child is living in the woods, catching its own prey etc etc, howling and running with other wolves, which I doubt, then why the hell is anyone going along with it? They are also saying that some others identify as dogs or cats etc. And here was me thinking men 'identifying' as women was bad.

I've heard of this. Teenagers identifying as cats. They sit purring in the class and the teacher respects this. I was having a discussion with my own teenage daughter about this and I said how the world has gone mad. We ended up arguing about it as she was so adamant that what they were doing is 100% normal and if I actually watched tiktoks I'd understand more about the world. Her exact words. I'm glad I'm not growing up in this generation

“if I actually watched tiktoks I'd understand more about the world.”

It's not that long since the faux-progressive talking heads on political chat shows were telling us none of this was going on, hee hee, it's all made-up right-wing culture wars. I wonder if they'll apologise for being wrong or, worse, if they knew as well as everyone else that schoolteens were pretending to be animals and chose lies to facilitate their own culture wars?

Anyway; act like parents, act like teachers and stop this nonsense going on. People seem to be scared to discipline their children.

https://www.reddit.com/r/otherkin/

'I recently discovered I'm Otherkin with my kintype being a shadow person and I've been looking into ways to be more like my kintype and ways to ease species dysphoria'

'Otherkin are individuals that identify as nonhuman in some manner.
Otherkin is NOT a work of fiction, roleplaying, or part of the furry fandom.'

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/features/why-be-human-when-you-can-be-otherkin

https://metro.co.uk/2021/12/25/how-otherkin-are-celebrating-christmas-15805753

For those who think this stuff is all made up and never happens.

😧😧

Bloody hell.

The thing with all of these ideologies that encourage people to identify of something outside of their biology, is that somewhere down the line, there is someone standing by ready exploit that confusion for their own sexual gratification.

Furry community is clever really. Ahhhh look at the harmless fuzzy suited people pretending to be animals. Nope. They are not 'pretending to be' they are 'identifying as' and they are most certainly doing it as some kind of kink/fetish.

Any teacher/parent/medical professional encouraging this bullshit is actually putting children on a path to joining fetish communities. They will see those people and think they are 'their people' but almost all furry communities are kink groups. And I am not being pearl-cluthching, it's just a fact. If I was the only kid in school that identified as a cat - and had been encouraged to pursue my belief - it would be hard to find like-minded people in real life, so where do I go? Online. What do I find? The furry community. Quite possibly whilst I am under sixteen and not in a great place mentally speaking.

Well done everyone.

Hmm, my eldest daughter is in secondary school and has told be on quite a few occasions that there is a small group in f kids who behave like animals and call themselves ‘furry’s’

Absolute bollocks imho. Why aren’t the parents stepping in to quash this shite?!?

Sounds like a lot of nonsense used to fuel & justify transphobia .. which appears to be rife in this thread!

Where?

https://wingsoverscotland.com/everything-is-transphobic/

Natch.

Quite literally from the very first page

A friends husband works with a 'cat'. It's an awfully trendy media company so I guess he is getting off lightly.

Gentle parenting does not mean allowing your children to get away with being rude/bullying etc. It means explaining boundaries and using your voice rather than your temper to parent. It’s actually bloody hard work if done properly.

I listened to the whole programme earlier and it was interesting.
Around the 30 minute mark they discussed the school linked upthread in detail including fact checking.

Anyway the programme helped my get some of my thoughts in order. I think one of the most important things we can do for our children with respect to safeguarding is to teach them to trust their own instincts and have confidence in their own boundaries rather than deferring to someone else.

An authoritarian model where they are shown that parents/teachers views are more important than theirs undermines this and paradoxically leaves them more at risk of ignoring their internal early warning signs of danger.

I don't think we should be bringing up children to think other people's opinions on their personality/preferences etc are more important than their own.

As much as I wholeheartedly disagree with this absolute horseshit, as a teacher, if one of my students suddenly identifies as a wolf, their parents agree they are a wolf, and either a medical professional or someone higher up the education chain than me has signed off on this bullshit, I really have no choice but to go along with it. If I refused to teach them, imagine the shit I would land myself in! Parents need to be stepping up and as someone above said metaphorically slapping sense into their children! It's an absolute joke.

It's not a school, it's an Acatemy.

The kid is a kid. Probably encouraged by the other animals at school and the attention. I don’t know what the adults are thinking.

An academy is still a school?

There is one at a school in my town. It is very much a real and worrying situation. But what did people expect when they allowed men to call themselves women when they have XY chromosomes? It's sick and dangerous.

It’s all nonsense dreamed up by the right wing media to get the transphobes foaming at the mouth. Looks like it’s worked.

Er.

The word no needs to be used alot more

Many years ago, in the late 80's, my son told his grandmother that he 'identified' as a dog. That was fine until teatime when everybody else got fish and chips on a plate - he got a tin of pedigree chum in a dog bowl.
Things were a bit tougher in them days.