Aibu to tell the mum?

[BettysMum2]

My year 6 daughter has a school friend who has decided she is a therian, wants them all to pander to it, call her hands paws when they are together, etc. She’s a nice girl with nice parents, but my daughter says her parents have no idea about it all. Some of the chats from her are very teen angst and melodramatic. It does present as being an attention seeking strategy but a little manipulative in how she expects the others to bend reality to affirm her status as an animal in human clothing so to speak.
If it was my daughter I would really want to know about it so I could address it, but I don’t know this mother well and would rather not create tension at the school gate.

Yabu- don’t tell the mother. Maybe she knows, or you’ll start a drama
yanbu- tell the mother, give her a chance to address it

Keep out of it with the mum. Tell your dd to ditch her friend. What is the world coming to giving shit like this a name 🙄
edit for typo

I wouldn’t give it oxygen, TBH.

Don't tell the mum. Help your daughter come up with replies she's comfortable with - role play and coach her through it.

Tell the school.

They can tell the mum

Just tell the school that you want it addressed with the child and her parents that she shouldn't be manipulating your daughter into participating.

Tell the school? “Matilda thinks she’s a fox and wants Betty to pretend she is to’

Just make sure your daughter is clear that it's all a load of old bollocks. That's all you need to do.

Yabu. Tell your DD it’s complete nonsense and encourage her to play with other friends. Keep as far away from this stuff as humanly possible.

I honestly think people make far too big a deal of this stuff. My daughter went through this phase. They grow out of it.

Exactly.

It’s really not that serious. I highly doubt she’s gonna get to secondary school and be requesting paw implants. It’s no different to a child pretending to be an animal pre “therian” times. There is no need to tell the parents.

If a parent came to me with this i would think they have lost the plot

Of course you need to tell the parents. It’s absolutely nuts, and impacting others. As a mum, I’d want to know.

Yep.

No obvious way forwards. I don’t know the mum very well, although she seems very unlikely to pander to this sort of nonsense. But we aren’t close enough to discuss over coffee.
I think I will just leave it.

Nah I refuse to believe this, nice try

A girl in my dd’s class at school claimed to be a furry, then got upset when people laughed at her and wouldn’t entertain it. Now she is trans. Just another attention seeking, shock tactic behaviour. Schools need to put more effort into teaching kids to accept themselves for who they are and not to entertain this madness.

Yeah kids do allsorts off shit most can be stopped by giving it no attention. Tell your daughter to ignore her and play with someone else. Things like this usually only become an issue when parents get involved and make it a bigger deal then it needs to be.

It’s definitely attention seeking behaviour. Lots of small announcements for people needing to respect her beliefs, etc. They are only 11 so the other children don’t seem to know what to make of it.

Well I suppose if she wants paws it’s only fair to remind her that she also needs to start licking her own bum now instead of using toilet paper. See how she gets on with that 😉

None of your business. Parent your own child.

Unless it is actively causing your DD problems, just let it pass you by. It's good your dd is discussing it with you. Making it a massive drama would probably prevent her doing that next time something came up.

I have a daughter the same age. In my experience, they all are saying they 'identify' as one thing or another. Be it trans, therian, non binary.. you name it. Anything to be different. I just laugh, tell her that I identify as a homosapien and get an eye roll in response.

I think that's the wise decision. My kids are in their 40s and what I learned throughout their school days is it's always best to stay out of friendship stuff (especially with girls!) unless actual bullying is involved, which it doesn't sound like is the case here. I think even calling it manipulation is a bit strong. All your daughter has to do is not go along with it. She can either keep up the friendship but refuse to comply with the paws nonsense or distance herself until the girl is through the nonsense. As long as you make it clear to your daughter that she has those choices, it will be fine.
As you don't really know the mother, it's not your place to say anything. I suspect she knows and is wisely letting the phase run its course, without turning it into a "thing".
Kids, more particularly girls, have always played pretending to be animals (it was usually horses when I was a child), it's just that it wasn't formalised and accessorised like it sadly is today. We improvised with our manes and tails, or just used pure imagination.

We have had lots of this. One child (academicallh Very smart) purred at the classmates. She always sat on own reading a book...

One of mine went through a stage of making the cat faces things. She met with pals one day in park... (I know...)

Phad was gone a week later

The academic girl got into the best school. Not sure if she is still a cat but the kids deal with it better than the adults. In fairness the purring in class made me laugh.

I said go mine if they really want to be a cat or a dog, I would give them cat food and they can eat on the floor...