HELP. DD 3.11 thinks she is a chicken. WWYD?

[ConstantCraving]

My DD is 3.11 and loves chickens - to the extent that she wants to believe she is a chicken. She has various chicken names she goes by: 'Happy Mrs Chicken', Henny Penny' etc and has an encyclopaedic knowledge of all things chicken (including chicken coops - you wouldn't believe how many there are!) DH and I have not really seen this as an issue, we like the fact she has a good imagination ,and her ability to remember information - and she's only 3, if you can't be a chicken at 3 when can you ?
Anyway, she has recently started nursery for the first time and its causing some issues -she has been calling the other children chickens, which has upset some of them, and she gets upset if the staff call her a little girl. I have sat her down and explained that other children don't want to be chickens and that she is a girl who loves chickens and loves playing being a chicken but she got really upset and stood in front of the mirror saying 'I think you are a chicken, your hair could be feathers .. you have got a beak' (she still talks in the 3rd person) trying to convince herself! Nursery seem worried by her obsession - and now I'm getting worried. My much older DS never did anything like this. I just thought she'd grow out if it - anyone else experienced anything like this?

If it makes you feel any better my dd at the same age told everyone that her real brother was the Gruffalo's child and his name was George.

And we had to walk around the supermarket buying George's favourite food.

And the checkout staff/deli staff used to ask after him by name.

My ds is not called George.

It will pass and meanwhile I think you should congratulate yourselves on having a child with such a great imagination. And if you are anywhere near Warwick you can come and see our chickens!

DS is often a dog. If he won't do something I often ask the doggy to do it - and sometimes he'll oblige. When he popped in his potty today I had to say "good doggy".

Sometimes he's a rabbit, sometimes a duck. This evening I was given a row for singing "twinkle, twinkle" with words and was forced to "quack" it instead. He is 3, I'm not worried. From what I've seen a lot of kids go through this phase. I'd try not to let it worry you, and not make a big deal of it. It's probably just a phase.

I was a cat pretty much all the time between the ages of 2 and 6. Then I swapped to being a flying horse. I am relatively normal now, honest.

At that age my daughter used to sit and sob that she wasn't a lion - she grew out of it too. It was quite heartbreaking really, poor love.

I agree, you should celebrate the chickenyness - and when she is a teen you will be able to embarrass her in front of all her friends about the chicken obsession.

My neighbour's child, same age as yours, is obsessed with tractors. I mean, you can show him a picture of any tractor (they all look the same to me) and he knows everything about the brand of tractor it is and all information there is to know about it. Gobsmacked I was, when he reeled of all this information to me. He eats, sleeps and dreams tractors.

Chickens don't sound to bad now, do they?

Our neighbours' little boy had a hoover obsession at that age. He could name them all in the dept store / argos catalogue. For his 3rd birthday his parent bought hima real Henry hoover that he cleaned the house with! Hope my ds develops this obsession too :-)

My son (3.9) likes to think he's a dog called Binky. My older son was obsessed by car exhaust pipes for quite a time. 5 years later it's Minecraft.

Maybe you should see it as a sign of future promise: a subject matter expert will always be in demand. Even if the subject matter is chickens.

Hey thanks for the quick responses everyone!! I am feeling much better now. Lions, cats, dogs, flying horses, tractors and hoovers make chickens seem really quite normal. I am reluctant to force her into reality, as she will have to conform soon enough - so yes, we will continue to celebrate the chickenyness .

My daughter has been a sheep for the best part of 2 years, she will only answer to baabaa some days and quite often talks like a sheep - I assume it will wear off eventually - she has just turned 4. If I could just stop her wearing a baby's sun hat 3 sizes too small, that is a more pressing problem!

Nothing to add apart from to comment that is the cutest thread ever :) dd2 is 4 and tells anyone who will listen that she is spiderman, but this is very tame compared to above examples :)

She sounds lovely, ds was opposite,loved pretending but always reminded you who he really was.

I'd wonder slightly about talking in 3rd person, is this constant?

Yep, a friend of mine at school was a horse for a long time, and she was older than your dd! She now keeps horses and various other animals in the Scottish highlands. She is married and (as far as I'm aware) is entirely normal, if rather 'individual'.

Jamdoughnut DD was wedded to her too small 'hello kitty' trousers until I brutally threw them out this summer (they were hanging round her knees like shorts!)
Mantana DD is very individual .
ll31 - using the 3rd person has been constant, we do remind her to use I or My and she can get it right but usually its 3rd person. She does a kind of running commentary through the day on what 'Happy Mrs Chicken' is up to... continues it at nursery commenting on the 'chickens' activities - hence some upset children who don't fancy being poultry.

Dd was a mermaid at around that age. This was fine until she asked when her tail was going to appear as it hasn't turned up in the bath or the swimming pool yet. Lots of verbal dancing around required to avoid total heartbreak!

She moved on from this via various animals etc - totally normal! Also, lots of third person at that age too.

So I binned the flower hat - cue wailing and tantrums. She turned up out of nursery today wearing a batman baseball cap that is now welded to her. Sigh....

DN had fairys called Nina and Lisa (we didn't know anyone called either name ) they lived in her hair and when they were not sleeping in her hair they sat on the metal bits of the ceiling lights and she would lie on the floor chatting to them. She spoke to them and about then the way she spoke to anyone else no panto talk just like they were really infront of her and told random people all about them! She grew out of it after a year or so but is still fairy mad and pretends to see them, though she knows now that it's just pretend.

DS is a motor head, we live on a long slightly curved road which means we can see cars coming for ages from the window and every Thursday he sits at the window and watches the bin lorry go alllllll the way down the road it takes about half an hour and the bin men know he watches and will wave it him.

They are all adorable little weirdos :)

My 3.7 year old spends a large part of his day being a train (be it a a steam train, bullet train, diesel electric, monorail, pendolino etc, etc). He is utterly obsessed with everything train-related. Every morning, the first thing I hear is his little voice peeping out "This train is about to leave the engine shed". I've been there once when he did it and his eyes weren't even open yet.

He doesn't talk in third person all the time, but does regularly have to be reminded that when people talk to him he can't always respond in train noises (a range of choos, hisses, puffs, whooshes and honks).

Your DD sounds lovely!

My three and a half year old speaks both Spanish and German. Which must make her some kind of child genius, as she has been exposed to neither.

It wouldn't be so bad, but she does it on the bus. Every day. Loudly.

Every morning, the first thing I hear is his little voice peeping out "This train is about to leave the engine shed".

I'm feeling a little tender this evening and this ^^ has just brought a wee tear to my eye!

DDs (2 and 4) pretend to be cats or dogs. They are really good at playing fetch and bring the ball back in their mouths.

Give her muesli for every meal for a few minutes days as that's bird seed.

My 3 yr old is mainly a giganotosaurus. Sometimes a carnotaurus but rarely a little boy. He roars at other children and they often look scared or confused. He has the odd kindred spirit at nursery who is a dino too but DS tends to be little known ones which makes him look odd to the staff. Still perhaps better than the 'Les' phase when he was an aged farmer called Les (as featured in tractor ted DVDs) or the lengthy 'Yorkshire terrier' phase which included eating dinner from the floor and doing a poo outside.
Enjoy it! I love the toddler brain! Too soon will they be moody teens! I think your nursery are boring and your DD is the interesting one.

Elfy we do! the technical term is apparently 'Chick Crumb' . BlueSprite that is SO sweet.

DD thought she was Peppa Pig for quite some time...