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

Totally inappropriate for a 10yo child.
Why? Are other forms of imaginary games inappropriate too?

The kids I've dealt with doing this through work goes beyond being an imaginary game.
They are wearing cat ears, collars with bells on and tails. The meow when spoken to. It goes beyond a joke. What's more the parents encourage it.

I have low tolerance for this and I honestly thought I was going to get disciplined at work when I told a child she couldnt go swimming because cats dont like going in swimming pools. However my manager backed me up and said to the child that we would have to go to Pets at home to get a cat bed for her to sleep on and some cat litter now she is a cat. She changed her tune and said she was a temporary cat and she would go back to being a cat at home.

The child’s parents may be too and take her to conventions and that’s how she knows about it. I was in London recently and there was a big group of them (adults) walking around. I have heard of children going along too - I wouldnt be happy with my child being encouraged.

If it were just a child playing at make believe it would be different - but the fact she is using grown up language to describe herself I would be slightly concerned.

I'd be wondering about the parents, and about their DD's internet access ... Is there an older sibling who might have gone down this particular fetish rabbit hole without realising it? It's all linked to rather underground sexual fetishes in adults, AFAIK.

It's a bit of a double sided coin, on one side it's a bit of harmless escapism, on the other there's part of the community that is totally predatory and full of groomers and pervs.

I say this as someone who used to do lots of "anthro" art (basically cartoons/comics of cat and dog people) when I was a teenager although never "cosplayed" but you go into the wrong forum and it can be very fetishised and sexual and totally put me off the "community". So I would be wary.

Basically it's okay in and of itself, but perverted men ruin everything, so if she gets drawn in make sure her online access and presence is locked down and you speak to her clearly about predators in the community (as you won't be able to totally police what the friend introduces her to) and also make sure she feels safe to speak to you about anything.

But as a PP said the first thing to teach her is that she should never feel peer pressured to join any communities. She can be friends without actually participating. Xx

I think I would just reassure my child that they should never do anything they don’t want to do, or feel pressured into things they are not
comfortable with and I would let my child know that the other child clearly has mental health issues, as many do.

You could take them both on an outing to a drive-through animal park. In the wolf enclosure, suggest the friend might like to get out of the car and « run with her people »…

Pretending to be a wolf is one thing. Kids have always done 'pretending'. No issue with that.

Knowing about Furries and trying to recruit is where it gets worrying. Very hard to not accidentally come across adult content when looking at that online, and it must have come from online.
When Furry conventions feel the need to issue guidelines like don't display "cub porn" or "animals and humans having sex art" like they did in Glasgow, you know it's not all just innocent fun. And yes, the fact they turn out for Pride is telling.

Have you considered a safeguarding referral? Not to school, to actual social services? I'd worry she's going to be vulnerable and out of her depth if she continues on this road. When she starts going out without adults she's at task of attracting wrong 'uns if she's in costume. Somehow predatory men have a supersonic radar for any vulnerability.

Kids with challanges find each other too. I've worked with kids who have complex issues, and I myself was one. I swear you could drop them off in a completely unknown town centre and within a few hours they'd have found and joined forces with other complex kids. Just magnets for each other and it doesn't often end well.

What is your job? How come the young people were allowed to dress like this?

Adult ‘furries’ are playing out a fetish. And children who are over exposed to online content are being encouraged to participate - do you not wonder why? Although ‘filth’ isn’t a descriptor I’d use, it’s certainly disconcerting to see a child behaving in the way adults with fetishes do. Let’s put it another way - what would you say about a 10 year old dressed in BDSM gear? Would you say ‘oh, she’s only playing imaginatively’?

I hate the whole cat thing too, but absolutely nobody should be saying things like this about children. Maybe she is young for her age (by modern standards where kids stop being kids when a phone is handed to them) or maybe she has mild Sen. Maybe they are young child has a challenging home life.

Explain form,oh to your child that this friend is doing something which is not an ok, normal thing to do and that she must not join in at all. Explain that the friend needs to stop being silly because she is embarrassing herself and reiterate that she’s absolutely not to join in or encourage her friend and to try to play with others at playtimes instead and ignore the friends silliness.

By ‘from oh’ I meant FIRMLY! Typo 🫣

I don’t get it. If the kid is a wolf, then why is the wolf attending school? Schools are for humans. Explain that to your dd and encourage her to keep out of this very strange situation. Whilst not upsetting the wolf.

Bin the tail also.

It's best to quietly ignore. Naysayers just encourage them.

Same here. I remember two things about her - one her pretending to be a horse and two she got very bad sunburn one year and was bright red. She's a midwife now. I imagine Wolfie will grow out of it.

Same. My DD was a therian for a year, and then grew out of it. It wasn’t weird at all - she had great imagination and her group were having a wonderful time using drama and creativity. I used to joke that they will be in the next Cats production. Is it better if they were playing with guns and pretending to kill people? I was so upset when she was bullied relentlessly by boys in the school. They were not hurting anyone with their playing.

People sexualise everything nowadays, they are the sick ones - not the children who are just happily pretending (whilst believing) to be something different. My daughter really engaged with this idea because she believes in reincarnation.

My daughter then used her enthusiasm to create and make her own masks and outfits, really spending time with her coyote image and looking at face paints. This has been a great experience for her and she has the ability to make amazing things.

If your daughter wanted to play, she could join in and say ‘I am pretending to be something’. Obviously, she shouldn’t be pressurised into anything she doesn’t want to do, and if this is the case then she should just communicate this. My daughter had different friends, some that played therian games, and some that didn’t and she accepted that.

I understand the concern around the Furry community and links to fetishism. I also am aware that there are some cases where children have been indulged too far in their 'identities', which are usually a passing phase. Firstly, there is a difference between the Furry community and Therians. Furries are linked to cosplay and anime, Therians feel they lived a past life as an animal. The vast majority see it as a spiritual thing and don't identify as an animal, they know they are human.
My daughter is a bright, kind, clever and creative 8 year old child who calls herself a Therian. She talks and behaves like a human child, and knows she is one. She is inspired by her love of animals, nature and art. She makes her own animal masks, as lots of young Therians do, and she sometimes wears tails and runs around on all fours. She's playing, finding her sense of self, questioning the unanswerable questions we all do about why we're here and whether we have souls.
Sometimes her friends play these games with her, although she knows they may not believe the same things she does. She asked us to buy her friend a tail for her birthday, and made her a mask, because she likes playing as an animal too. She may grow out of it, she may not. I'm proud of her, and any child is lucky to have her as a friend.

Agreed but unfortunately there’s going to be 100 posters replying in a both naive and patronising manner about their irrelevant childhood 20 plus years ago.

Also, to everybody saying she has too much internet access, probably, but also don’t underestimate the social contagion prevalent in children.

Where did she find out about therians?

@Backtotheback how did your DD get to know about Therians?

Fucking hell we are allowing perverts to groom our children so effectively.

The idea that this is just fun is so bloody naive. If you think it's just fun, you too are being groomed. Groomers don't just groom their victims, they groom the whole of society so that they can function more effectively in it.

If the kid were playing with wearing stockings and suspenders, everyone would recognise that she'd been groomed and be utterly disturbed by it and know that it shouldn't be ignored. Because we all recognise those items of clothing as sexual. Whereas too many people still don't have a clue about the fetishes to be found on what for parents are the outer reaches of the internet, but for kids, is their mainstream.

Wake up.

This is what would worry me. Where the fuck are they getting this terminology from? Why do they not just think they’re a horse, cat, wolf etc? And whatever delusion the child enjoys indulging in, why are the parents buying tails etc for someone else’s child? Surely that’s a step too far.

She watched some YouTube videos about animal crafts -with me and my husband present. She got some ideas for masks and we found out about Therians. She has restricted access to the internet with one of us present and mostly spends her time outside or making crafts.

If her friend already knows the furry community words I'd be terrified what she'd seen online and who she was talking to tbh, people think it's just a slightly odd community but it's bloody full of perverts.

@Backtotheback why didn’t you just let her do craft. Did look up fetishises too?