DD friend is a furry/therian. Trying to encourage (strongly) my DD to be the same.

[Sockmate123]

What would you do in this situation? Child in class is 'recruiting' other children (mainly very quiet children) to be furries. She says she is a therian and presents as a wolf. School has banned her wearing wolf items to school but she still does on party days/world book day/non uniform etc
Parents seem to do littke about it
Quite older parents. Children are 10. My DD has so far not engaged but likes the child involved but is being pressured. It was her birthday recently and friend bought her a tail 🙄

I think this is completely weird. Child digs holes at lunch time, barks at people etc cute/acceptable up until age 5 or 6 but not girls that are on the cusp of puberty!

AIBU?
Yes- she's only a kid, will spon grow out of it.
No - its weird, school and parents should do more to address it

going to say this as someone who has a lot of friends in the furry fandom.

1. if kids that age are being exposed to this stuff the parents need to stop allowing them unfettered access to the internet. They wouldn't have a clue about Therianism without the internet.

2. Kids can't be 'furries' "Furry" is the enjoyment/love of Anthropomorphic characters, in comics, cartoons..etc. The rest of it follows once they join the 'fandom'. Under 12s don't even know what Anthropomorphic means, therefore they CANNOT be a furry, it is just pretend play.

3. the furry Fandom is really no different from Anime/Comic type fandom stuff. Yes they have meets, like most fandoms, but nearly all are 16 or 18+ and not open to children.

4. Most Furries actually think Therians are weird, and they're not generally 'welcome' in the fandom. Furries KNOW they're not animals, they just like to wear cosplay for fun, then go back to being people.

Why do you feel that every child needs to behave in a way you feel is "normal"? Viva la différence.

People can be different. That's what makes society great. There should be some basic social norms that people adhere to though.

I'm glad we agree that people being different makes society great. Can we agree that completely harmless behaviours fall into this category?

It's bloody weird. What don't you understand?

@DeskJotter ate there any behaviours you would find unacceptable, so if this child identified as a baby instead of a wolf and came into school wearing nappies, would that be okay?

Exactly. Thank you.

But I thought you said that people being different is what makes society great?

There are lots of behaviours I would find unacceptable. Luckily, none of them are happening in this case.

There's still some certain level of normal/acceptable social standards that should be adhered to. You really are stupid aren't you?

They aren't.

Have just seen this mentioned on the "Mouths of mums" Aussie parenting site.

And how is a child dressing up a a wolf destroying the society? I think you are a bit paranoid. What makes you think that you get to decide what 'basic norms' are and why are they have to be the norms you consider 'normal'.
Some people throw toys out of the pram when they see someone wearing a tattoo, and some cant stand an idea that a child wears a wolf tail. Live and let live.

There's a time and a place. Wants to dress up as a wolf on occasion at a fancy dress party. That's fine. Acts like a wolf at school, not okay.

I expect the child doesn't know what the terms Therian or Furry really mean. They've probably heard an adult or older child say them and think it means cosplaying as an animal or that they identify with wolves because they are them as a spirit animal . All meaningless tosh tbh.

Unfortunately there's plenty of schools that are very much entertaining this. We have about 12-15, year 5 and 6 children at our school (it is a large school of 100 per year intake) that are dressing up and identifying themselves as "furries". They bring in gloves, tails, masks and one of them even has a collar. A few of them eat lunch on the floor like dogs, or eat without hands and run around on hands and knees at break barking.

As I've already said, the playing is not a problem. For sure we all played pretend, and ran around on our hands and knees and some children grow out of that before others. However, where its not fair is our school are having to tell off countless children for making fun of them, but won't stop these children wearing this stuff! No other dress up wear or toys are permitted, but apparently this is acceptable. They are treating them as some kind of protected group- like an extension of LBGTQ+ or something. Because they have clung to this "I identify as" language and tone and the school seems afraid to challenge it!

One girl in year 6, walked past me last year - and i promise you now, she was wearing a fairly intimidating wolf mask with a latex strap on the back. Looking like it had been ordered straight off a fetish website. I'm sure her parents were unaware of the connection between fetishes and furries, when they purchased her the mask but that's part of the problem!!

It's sad and disturbing . Year 6, she won't know what it means to identify as something she's not. And the chances are of her being trans or knowing anyone who is are like 0.1%. I mean, I have a couple of friends who say they're trans but they have not had dysphoria as such, it's been conflated into just "I identify as" or " I feel x, I am x. "

Re: the teachers having to tell them off, why on earth are their parents allowing kids to come to school dressed like this? Or is it that the children go to school in uniform and change into these costumes? I think it must be the latter. No parent is that dim. Surely ?

@OtterInABlueTie I think some parents on this thread would allow it as they think it is only a game and we should allow them to be different

Games are fine. But for outside lessons! When. I was a kid playtime was for outside school or in break/lunch.

to be fair I have sympathy if genuine special needs. But calling it an "identify as" issue makes me think it's pandering a bit. We have always had high functioning ND and traumatised kids in mainstream schools, what we didn't have was a bunch of "identify as something else" kids. We didn't have all these identities ! It just wasn't a fad back then.

They take the accessories in a bag with them and change at break.

Although I've seen them all walking home wearing it too, so their parents know about this.

What about the parents that know it’s not a game and still allow it because they believe a child should be free to express themselves however they choose so long as they are not hurting others? (I don’t agree with her trying to influence others to be something they’re not but understand why a 10 yr old would do that obvs). I don’t know why it’s such a big deal and this thread is STILL going. Just let her get on with it

But this isn’t when you were a kid. It’s not your generation. No it wasn’t a fad when you were a kid but it is now. If people keep saying “well, we wouldn’t have had it in my day” that’s not helpful and also makes you sound really out of touch. There were plenty of things that weren’t tolerated 20 or 30 years ago and many kids who suffered because of that. Society is a lot more tolerant now so there are bound to be new “fads” that come with that. I believe children should be able to express themselves freely. Trying to ban this just makes them suppress it and either results in self-loathing and low self-esteem or the child rebels and their behaviour becomes even more extreme and the gap between them and their parents even bigger

How many children suffered because they weren't allowed to self identify as, for example, a cat?!! It's ludicrous.

How far do you take it? Let them defecate in a litter tray?!

What about establishing boundaries?!

Yes i know similar. It's the entitlement of parents and children here not to follow conventional societal norms particularly in a school setting that is totally inappropriate. For whatever reason these children feel the need to dress up as animals there is no excuse for doing this in school. Therefore it is parents job to say no to the children...why not mummy? ...because it's school and you can dress up at home. There is absolutely no legitimate reason this should be tolerated at school..end of..school rules about toys and dress code should be respected.