My child has come home saying that they identify as a wolf

[kateharrison23545]

I know that this may cause me to receive some backlash, but I am genuinely concerned for my child and their well-being.

My child, up until now has always been identified as a girl. She has always worn the stereotypical girly clothes, had the girly hairstyles, and has been friends with 90% girls. She is 13 and has recently begun seeing a boy in her year at school. Myself and my daughters Dad (my husband) met him and he seemed nice, quiet but we put that down to him being shy. They seemed to have a lot in common, though I haven't read too much into it as they are both only 13 and what type of relationship is serious at that age?

In the days after we first met this boy, my daughter began asking me questions regarding what I would do if she 'came out as something out of the ordinary'. I admit that I brushed this off as I was trying to finish marking my students' work and I did not have time for questions. My daughter asked my husband the same question and he replied with 'he doesn't understand what she is on about'. My daughter since this day has been acting strange, and my husband heard her refer to herself as 'the alpha' - prompting my husband to ask if she knew what that meant, allowing my daughter to respond with that they had been learning about wolves and evolution in animals in Biology. My daughter also added that her boyfriend was 'fascinated by wolves and often acts like one too'.

I have tried to dis encourage her to carry on seeing this boy, though I do not want to come across as controlling, and have her rebel against me. She tells me that her and this boy are a part of 'the pack' and that she now identifies as a wolf, wanting to wear a tail, ears, and a wolf mask.

Obviously, I do not agree with this behaviour whatsoever and I want her to completely stop what she is doing, my husband feels the exact same way as I do. But, how do I approach this without her rebelling against me?

I was prepared for all the usual teenage antics like potentially smoking, staying out late, underage drinking - all the things that every teenager does and I was prepared to handle. However, this is not something I could have seen coming. I have heard that this is common in some teenage groups and sometimes in adults too, though I am completely out of my depth.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Kate

Tempted to suggest she is offered a raw lamb's leg (skin on) at mealtimes. But perhaps not very constructive..

Perhaps you could kill it with kindness? Lots of nature documentaries, ask her a lot of questions and do lots of googling about wolf biology, the cultural meaning of wolves, how much dna do wolves and humans share....

(in the hope you bore it out of her by taking it super seriously)

I'd be saying something along the lines of 'if you want to be a wolf, fine, you can live out in the garden and eat raw meat. If you want to sleep in your own bed and eat things like pizza and play computer games then you are a child and that is the end of it.' I'd also check her phone, does she have apps like Instagram/Tumblr/Tiktok? Check what she is looking at on there, there are various users on each platform called 'therians' who feed this content to young kids.
You might find the relationship falls away over the summer. I'd be limiting screentime (don't link it to this, explain it as everyone is on their phones far too much), and either utilise the inbuilt screentime app or use the app Qustudio to turn screentime on. Encourage her to go out with her friends. It sounds like the boyfriend is encouraging it so if she's not seeing him at school every day, you'll probably find she forgets about it.

Just ignore it. It’s a silly phase that will pass.

On the plus side, she may find she's suddenly really good at basketball.

Take her out to a forest in the middle of nowhere and tell her if she’s a Wolf, they have excellent tracking skills and she’ll be able to make her own way home.

A couple of hours in the dark stumbling around should make her see sense.

It's a phase and has nothing to do with sexuality.

No different to children thinking they are Spider-Man, Power Rangers or anything else that takes their fancy.

It’s a lot different when they’re thirteen, not five.

A simple checklist for her -

Wolves don’t

Wear clothes.
Eat cooked food they have a diet of raw meat.
Live in the house or have access to washing facilities or a bedroom.
Use toilet paper.
Wear sanitary towels.
Brush their teeth.

@👏

My response would be stop being so ridiculous and if you’re going to be so easily led by this silly boy you won’t be hanging out together anymore….time to find some more sensible friends.

Tickle her belly.

Make sure you lock her up securely on a full moon.

That's all you can do really.

Maybe take her to the zoo so she can be amongst her own. They are pack animals after all.

I would tell her not to be so ridiculous. And I would be checking her phone. I’d be concerned how much therian crap shes been looking at on things like TikTok

Let her dress up if she wants. It's likely a phase. Tell her she's part of your family and you love her, but wolves don't have electronic devices and live in the wild or in Zoos. If she identifying as a wolf and relating to a wolf are different things, it's likely the latter help her figure it out.

behaviour is communication. She’s trying to find somewhere she belongs. A pack has rules, belonging, close relationships. So I can see where she’s coming from. It’s also (probably) a phase. Limit screen time (for other reasons), encourage other interests, don’t make a big fuss about the wolf thing (‘oh that’s nice dear’) and it will probably pass. If you do the raw meat/forest thing then you just embarrass her and drive her more into the arms of the therians.

Has she had unsupervised access to the internet? I’d want to be checking what she has been watching too. Kind of like the idea of you either totally ignoring it so she gets bored, or reading up on it and getting super involved so she gets the ick.

She doesn't 'think she's a wolf', she's mucking about and pushing buttons to see what she can get away with.

Ignore it and it'll go away.

The quickest way to make things uncool is to be really interested in it yourself.

I'd also point out (to her) that a) it is not really very out of the ordinary, lots of teenagers pass through this phase (and in fact a werewolf fic phase was a not-uncommon thing for teen girls in the early days of their periods, even back before the internet) and b) remind her that 'wolf' isn't a protected identity so anyone eating the neighbours rabbit will be in big legal trouble.
Then leave them to it.

Actually there’s a lot of weird romance literature out there about humans who are also wolves (which started coming up on my Facebook feed for a while god knows why - I hate fiction, romantic literature etc and definitely don’t want to be a wolf lol)! But yes it’s clearly a thing. Like the 2020s version of vampire diaries.
So maybe that’s how she sees herself and her boyfriend?

Sounds like she’s into it to impress this boy.
When we were girls we thought we’d marry whatever pop star… It never happened! She won’t be a wolf forever.

12th of May is the full moon, take her out and let her howl at the moon.

It is probably just a phase. When I was about 11 I was adamant I was a vampire (spoiler, I wasn’t it was just the start of my dark and twisted goth phase). This will just be an embarrassing footnote one day. This kind of thing is more common in ASD children tho (I now know I have ASD, and that I am not one of the undead). If she were mine that would be my thought. Wouldn’t act on it right now, but I’d try and keep an eye out for other signs as in girls this age is often when it gets more apparent.

I remember there were lots of tribes in the 90s at school, goths, ravers, grungers, boy band fanatics. They all had their own dress code and way of behaving.
I knew people in all these groups and even the most super extreme people are normal adults now, still might be a bit goth in their dress sense or still like take that but its not their entire personality like it was in the teen years.
I would think this wolf stuff is similar, its just a teen tribe.i mean, shes not actually going to become a wolf and leave home to live wild in a forest and hunt rabbits in the moonlight, live in a den and drink from a lake.

I went through a phase at 12 or 13 of being obsessed with vampires and if someone had told me I could identify as one I probably would have. I just was a kid being silly, probably felt a bit misunderstood and chose to be obsessed with that instead of One Direction or whatever boy band was popular at the time. In your case I would probably ignore this phase other than asking if she’d like her meat raw or cooked, if she’d prefer a litter tray to the toilet, or other jokey things that would cause inconvenience and suggest you’re not taking her very seriously

It's a silly phase. Just ignore it.

You and your husband must show your unstinting support by wearing these at all times