to think that children in your child's class don't identify as animals?

[wotnofurries]

inspired by the wearing a tail to school thread, I thought I'd see just how common or otherwise the whole furry/litter tray/identify as an animal thing really is.

Unreasonable = Yes, a child in my child's class does this.
Not Unreasonable = Don't be silly, never come across one in my life.

Not the same at all.

My DH is a GP at a surgery that takes medical students for part of their training. The dean of the medical school has told them one of the incoming students identifies as a cat & needs adjustments made. I was so gobsmacked as to me this is a right wing click bait rumour (I am gender critical btw!) that I questioned him again & again on this but I have no reason to think DH or the dean would be making this up…

What adjustments do they require?!

My eldest is the same age. She doesn't know the word therian or what it means and also wouldn't know or think to 'identify' with being anything other than what she is.

Probably because she doesn't have any - and I mean any - unsupervised access to the internet and has absolutely zero access to social media!

Year 4 is 8/9 years old. If children know about this sort of absolute nonsense then it's down to their parents, or exposure to children (at school most likely) whose parents allow them to access this sort of thing. In England at least, identifying as animals is not on the national curriculum so it's not being taught here.

These are children. All children play make believe, it's healthy and imaginative play. But I would have serious concerns about any child of this age who was being encouraged or permitted to believe they can actually identify as a different flipping species.

Bonkers.

You are really quite unpleasant aren't you

Absolutely agree and I think they will use it to rebel or be different the more you try and stop them. I obviously won't be comfortable if my daughter does this as a teenager but I'm definitely not making a big deal out of it as a 7 year old

No - none at our school thank goodness - how bladdy bizarre. The world is going mad and worse - people are actually allowing this to happen.

Mmm groomers often appear to be 'nice'.

I don't think goths or emos had any sexual kinks connected to their subculture, did they?

I wish I was older than I am @MistressoftheDarkSide !!

My 10yo and her friends often identify as either cats or farm animals, their teacher leaves them to it but neither me or any of the parents allow tails at school.

My friends and I pretended to be My little Ponies at primary school. Is this the same thing? We knew everything about those flying horses to the point of obsession. Thankfully no longer.

Well, many of the kids doing this are going to be the ones on the edges - the ones who don't fit in for whatever reason. They are highly unlikely to be on the team. Parents of the outlier girls can't just turn them into popular girls. It's not like they choose.

Goths definitely had kink connected to their subculture and it was a whole lot less cutesy than a fluffy tail. Visit to Torture Garden anyone?

It's strange, everyone on MN seems to know a child who identifies as an animal yet I work in schools and have never come across this. Not once. My friends who work in different schools, colleges or children's mental health services have never come across it either. But every time a thread on this topic comes up (which it does regularly) you get loads of "oh yes, half my DC's class are wearing tails and crawling round on all fours" and "they've had to put a litter tray in the classroom" type comments. Last time I saw a thread like this I was on a training course the next day, sat around a big table with pastoral leaders from schools all over the county. Issues around Gender identity in schools came up in the conversation, so out of curiosity I asked if anyone had ever had a child at their school identify as an animal and they all said the same thing; they'd seen rumours about it in the press or online but never actually seen it in real life.

So all these so called 'campaigns' for litter trays in classrooms, have they ever been successful?

And if so, do the cats kids actually pull their pants down and shit in them, in front of the whole class?? 😳

I'd go fucking mental if someone shat in a classroom in front of my DC.

Well being anything is surely nicer than being bitchy?

The adjustment they can make is to identify as a cat that's identifying as a human adult professional who can leave their purrsonal drama at home and not bring it into a clinical setting.

purrsonal drama 🤣🤣🐈

There are a whole group with tails and masks at a home ed forest school that we attend, they are older children and tweens who enjoy free play acting out that they are a group of animals when they are in the woods together. They don't particularly travel on all fours (as they would quickly get thorns and mud on their hands if they did!) The oldest ones refer to themselves as therians but act in exactly the same way as the younger ones, for whom it is one of many interchangeable pretend games.

Most have SEN and can sometimes seem younger than they are in their interests - or possibly they just seem more like 'traditional' children who had dolls into their tweens etc rather than 2024 ones who are on the skincare/fortnite at 8? I had residual dress-up clothes around at home including animal/dragon etc props into my own early secondary school years (1990s) and nowadays this is possibly even more 'lines blurred' with the popularity of animal onesies, hoodies with ears etc as normal tween clothing aimed at everyone.

You do realise that you can let her play pretend whilst still correcting her that no, she cannot identify as another species? It's not all or nothing.

Exactly - "You do realise that you can let her play pretend whilst still correcting her that no, she cannot identify as another species? It's not all or nothing".
Most children have a dressing up clothes box and like to put on clothes and pretend. I had an imaginary friend when I was about 5 and my mother even kindly set the table for her sometimes. The identifying bit is the problem as it is basically a lie. Facts and honesty matter.

I didn't say they were. But that was the comment.