5 year old saying he's a girl?

[frenchnoodle]

How best to deal with this, it is happening at home at school and started roughly 4 months ago, maybe a bit longer and at first everyone school included was treating it as a normal phase, to correct and ignore but although it's occasionally luled he's still insistent he's a girl.

What is the next step here?

My son was like this a year ago when he was 4, claiming he wants to be a girl and wearing stereotypically girls clothes daily. We explored his idea of what makes someone a girl and challenged gender stereotypes but otherwise did not stop him in presenting in whichever way he wanted and went along with however he wanted to be addressed. Interestingly he didn't do it at school, only at home.
Gradually he's developed a clearer awareness of his sex, he doesn't talk about wanting to be a girl anymore and understands he is a boy and will always be male. He still likes to dress up in skirts and dresses but it's not every day now, he has a variety of interests and behaviours both gender conforming and non-conforming.

If he feels like a girl, ask him to choose clothes. If he chooses dresses, get him a dress and tell him he is just as loved in 'girl' as 'boy' clothes. Ask him what toys he likes and if he likes stereotypically feminine ones, encourage him to play with them. And at school give him the space to dress how he chooses (skirt/trousers) as long as he feels loved and beautiful regardless of if his peers judge him.

He possibly transgender, but you will obviously not know for sure. Just give him the space to tell you when he's older if he is still sure about it

there is a difference i think. I grew up as a huge tomboy. I hated dresses, loved football, hated princesses and had many friends who were boys. I always still knew I was a girl though and I never thought I was a boy
Kids are often smart enough to understand that boys can wear dresses and girls can like football

One of mine decided he was a girl at about 3, he had a girls name he used and it went on for about 2 years. We just ignored it and got on with life. Like someone suggested upthread he started dance classes, tap and ballet. I didn't enroll him he just walked into a class with his sister one day and didn't want to leave, the teacher said to leave him thinking he'd soon get fed up but he didn't. His best friend at primary school was a girl. He just gradually grew out of it. I do think ignoring it is the way to go.

Absolutely a genuine question, what is your understanding and explanation of what being transgender means?

I really would like to understand what people think it means, in their own words, explained as if I’m a time traveller from 100 years ago.

yes kids are, sometimes their parents aren't (and the internet has a lot to blame). I grew up with all the gender stereotypes you could imagine (pink bedroom, clothes etc). But I also lived in trousers (still do, rode bikes, climbed trees but also look like a typical female and never though I was anything other than feminine/girl.

The trouble is as soon as a girl shows an interest in lego or racing bikes she is now under huge pressure to declare she is a boy, to be trans, as she is doing 'boys stuff'. Which worryingly will impact things like career choices as she is discourage from STEM subjects (as they are for boys ).

This is still on going, I think he likes the way skirts and dresses can spin, maybe a sensory thing?

He's happy, so I'm happy to just go along with it, no battle. The amount he is insisting he's a girl has decreased but he still insists he is. Thank you all for the advice.

I don't blame you for not turning this into a battle at aged 5/6. Although I would try to keep gently teaching him that it's not clothes, hobbies, personality, interests or how they feel that that makes someone a boy or a girl.

The only thing that makes you a girl is being a female child.

Why tell him he's not? My dd was a lemur for 6 months!

Why do anything?

My DS pretended to be a dog then a cat for ages and it was fun for him. Now he’s just himself.

@CurlewKate and @ToastMarmalade

Forgive me if I'm misinterpreting your points but there's a big difference between imaginative/make believe play and a child becoming confused as to what being a boy and a girl is about, especially when it's possible that school, friends or online sources may be confusing him further still.

Parents are the first and main teachers of young children, it's their job to teach the child about the world and the people in it. This includes teaching about the nature of boys and girls, men and women.

Because he's a boy.

I'm sure he knows this, or at least as much as a 5 year old does, but making it an issue with constant correcting isn't going to help. I don't want it to be an attention seeking battle. So it is, I think better for me to ignore it. It's been going on for a long time now, over a year. All the correcting in the world hasn't made him change his mind.

It was about 3-4 years when my daughter and her cousin were convinced they were fairies. So about age 4-7. obviously we didn't take her to a doctor or ask the school to affirm this.

I'm doing neither with my child 🙄.

No doctors and no affirming just letting him lead and not saying anything to make it a power battle.

I certainly don't want chams involved, they caused problems when my eldest had sleep issues.

Sorry, just trying to be funny.

On a more serious note regarding child-led parenting. My kids are teens now (almost adult) and I have a different perspective now than when they were young. I really wanted to parent by child-led principles and I noticed that it's easy to slip into but too much can harm kids. Our kids did so much better when we were confident and presented a safe environment with boundaries. In fact, the older they got the more I realized that child-led can be an abdication of parental responsibility. I'm absolutely not suggesting you are doing this, but rather wanted to share my own movement away from this philosophy. Of course, we tried to encourage our children on their strengths and not stress at the things they didn't do well with, but I came to see that children appreciate and thrive when we have firm, yet loving, answers and boundaries for them. I also used the, "in this family, we have these values," which surprised me as I was quite anti-morals and anti-religion (still agnostic in beliefs) but I saw that kids need structure and shared values that are bigger than their own personal identity, which shifts a great deal when you are young. So, it's healthy to have a parent who sees reality and doesn't waver from it and is a rock of stability for them. There have been select times when we had to hold firm on what we thought was right for our DDs despite their own thoughts on the topic. We are glad we did. Our girls are doing very well, despite some tough things that have happened to them. I just wanted to share that in most situations, parents know best and it's often not good for children to tell us what they want and for us to always believe them.

Best of luck to you and child. I wish you nothing but health and happiness.

Don't pay too much attention, he's only five and five year olds are imaginative.

In fact I daresay that if you were hearing him say he was a girl, twenty or even ten years ago, you would have dismissed it as a phase.
It's because the whole trans thing has become such an issue that you are even worrying about it.

As others have said, let him dress as he likes, play with whatever takes his fancy, but tell him that he's a boy and can't be a girl.

My DD insisted she was a unicorn for nearly a year when she was at preschool. She even got me to feel her forehead where her 'horn' was growing through! 😂
We mostly approached it by cheerily exclaiming how much fun it was to pretend to be other things - "Oh - are you being a unicorn today? How lovely. what do unicorns eat? Is it different from what little girls eat? Oh, they eat cake do they? Well little girls have to have their dinner as well as cake, so what a shame you're not really a unicorn" - bollocks like that. Like I say, it went on for nearly a year - on and off - but it did stop eventually. I think the work getting a bit more challenging at school and play being a bit more structured both contributed.

I hope you're all well and happy and do come over to the Feminism boards if you feel you want or need any support with school.

@CatMattress I hope you're all well and happy and do come over to the Feminism boards if you feel you want or need any support with school.

I've dipped my toe in occasionally over there but it's a very intimidating place.

Sorry, just trying to be funny.
@Delphinium20
I understand that but it's not funny when you are on the inside looking out, we are nearing 2 years of this come November / December time.

Our kids did so much better when we were confident and presented a safe environment with boundaries

As you know it is possible to have both a mainly child led approach but boundaries and structure to be in place when needed, children need supervision and protection from danger after all.
That said I really appreciate you taking the time to reply and giving me advice and feedback.

In fact I daresay that if you were hearing him say he was a girl, twenty or even ten years ago, you would have dismissed it as a phase.
It's because the whole trans thing has become such an issue that you are even worrying about it.
@Wishingwell57

I'm not sure if this is true, if he told me other things unrelated I would also be wondering about him. Like if he said he felt "empty" or something for the same amount of time I'd try and explore that feeling and work out what was going on.
Remember this is an ongoing thing, it's been the same thing since he was 4, we are now coming up to 6.

At first it was worry over how people will react, I was worried that other people reactions may make him self conscious or shamed and that is the last thing I want fr him.
Since taking that big step and letting him have dresses and skirts that fear has gone, very few people care and he is happy.
The fear now is for his future, the older he gets the more of a struggle against what's normal he will have, the last thing any parent wants is their kids to struggle, but that is what going against the grain is.
I understand what you are saying, what will be will be, but it doesn't stop that nagging fear does it?
Right now he is happy overall, so I feel I must be doing something right.
I'm sorry to hear your daughter had cancer, it must have been a horrible experience for the whole family.

Yes you have my age correct. It really helps to jus talk through all of this on the thread, even the more extreme posters help.

It's one of those situations where I would love a guidebook but there is none, so I just have to try my best.

Is your older child a girl? If so then it's probably just your younger one wanting to be exactly like the older one. I had this with my nephew, he wanted to be like sister and his cousin and insisted he was a girl for quite a few years. Probably stopped around secondary school age. We just half went along with it sometimes but didn't really make anything of it and he just grew out of it. Definitely no to social transitioning.

Nope, my older child is a boy, likes similar things to my 5 year old and has never been 'confused' about his sex. They're at the same school too and watch the same things, so if the 5 year old is being influenced I can't really work out where from, because the older one has been through the same things and this hasn't happened.

If school is treating him as a girl because he says he is, this is a problem. You need to talk to the school about what they teach with regards to this. You NEED to know. It has been known for some time that many schools will pander to these comments and then treat the hild as the gender they say they are, without informing the parent. This is a recipe for disaster and mental health issues. Confirming your child as a girl,and treating him as such, when he is biologically a boy at this age, causes confusion.

I would have been a boy now if I was born in these times. I was not girly at all until I was going through puberty.

Recently the government stated parents must be informed if this happens. Surely it should mean, you have a say in how they deal with this at school. Then it's handing back some power to you.

Do you have other children at home... are any girls?

I know of a case where a young boy said he was a girl. On this occasion, he had sessions with the parents and a child psychologist. It turned out that a sibling who was a girl, was getting much of the attention at home. He thought being a girl would get him more attention and love.

There are many reasons children these days say they are opposite of what biological sex they were born. Each reason will be different, however we can not ignore the drastic change in what kindergarten children are exposed to these days.

Have you asked him why he thinks he's a girl? If it's because he likes playing with dolls, wearing dresses etc etc, you can explain that boys and girls do this.

I'm sure I'll get flamed for this post, but I'm not concerned.

Hello and thank you for your post. You will not get flamed and I appreciate your input.
The school are not calling my child a girl, I've been assured they won't start either as I don't want it to happen yet.

I have another child, also a boy. Other than the usual places, like TV shows and books as far as I can tell the "5 year old" (now 6!) isn't being influenced from anywhere. It's strange as it's come out of nowhere and continued for a very long time.