Should I buy my daughter a therian mask and tail?

[pombearmum]

Hi there.

my daughter who is nearly 11 has recently declared that she is a therian. She believes she is half human half cat in fact she’s even got a name for her cat self. Luna. She is so desperate to wear a mask and tail. I really don’t mind but she recently did and was horribly ridiculed by some teenagers. Who shouted at her in the park. She said she didn’t care because you shouldn’t pick on peoples beliefs.

she’s asked me for a new mask and tail for her birthday. I don’t know if I’m being a bad parent buying it for her or a bad parent trying to steer her away from it. Am I opening her up to being massively bullied? She can be whoever she wants to be in front of me and in my opinion there’s far worse things she could do or be then wearing a mask. But the outside world isn’t as supportive.

is anyone else’s child also like mine and how do you deal with the whole not being sure what’s right or wrong thing? Advice would be great please. Sometimes I just don’t know what’s best.

Hell no.
Shut this crap down.
She is human. And can identify as such.

Good God what has the world become . I can’t even believe you are seriously asking this

Don’t be silly.

Young children heading towards big changes (secondary school, puberty) can sometimes revert back to
more childish activities. It’s a way of keeping hold of their childhood. So playing with dolls, dress up play, Playmobil figures. That kind of thing. All perfectly normal.

But what your DD is doing is not that. Even the most imaginative of 10 year olds who like to dress up know that it is just dress up. Your dd has taken her interests and placed a very worrying label onto them. Like others have said, you need to have a really good look at where she is accessing this stuff.

If you genuinely believe that she believes that she is half cat, you need to get advice from a decent child counsellor or psychologist PDQ.

This would be a no for me, in the most absolute of terms.

I will not indulge delusional behaviour.

She obviously isn’t a half cat, half human.

Indulging this is just giving her an unsafe world without boundaries.

No mask, no tail, and check her internet use.

Would your child have used the “I’m a therian” phrase?

Absolutely perfectly put. Remove internet and devices from your home. Take some leave or rejuggle home life if at home and go full on back to basics mode.

do this now before she reaches full blown teenage stage.

what might be quietly supporting, can also be an open door to much more harmful behaviour.

I would uninstall Roblox from her device.

Shes already had a taste of the ridicule so I would say no, she cant have a mask ans a tail

Mine went through this stage at the same age and so did some of her friends; I bought her masks she could customise and her dad bought her a tail when i balked. She wasnt allowed to wear it in public with me but i dont know what her dad got up to. The online content around it is unhinged, not necessarily perverted that i saw, but just so militant! Thankfully embarassment kicked in by the time she was 13 and its all over now so it turned into not much more than a decent art project in the end.

She just really likes cats. I was into horses at the same age and clearly remember reverting to more childish play like this, it just didnt have a name and a load of perverts latching onto it

@SalmonOnFinnCrisp would you kindly share any resources or what terms to google so I can learn how to control what my kids see on the internet please? My kids are 7 and under and don't have access to the internet yet (just Minecraft on the switch) but that day will soon come and I want to be as prepared as possible and also restrict tech usage. I just randomly stumbled on this thread and had no idea what a therian was!!

Sadly it is likely real I’ve seen parents in real life entertaining this bollocks and then complaining that their child has no friends because miaowing and rubbing around other kids legs is not welcomed. I would love to understand on what planet the OP has allowed her child to be exposed to this bollocks let alone let her leave the house dressed and pretending to be a cat or entertaining the idea that this is a valid “belief” system.

Take the phone off her.

Cats eat cat food; shit in litter trays, and don’t have technology. Tell her if she’s really committed to becoming a cat, she has to prove it.

Oh, and the litter tray cannot be somewhere private.

And cats don’t have their own money.

Hard no!you are a person not a animal on repeat

Remove all devices and ban visits to other people's houses. This stuff is far too close to being groomed by pervs on the internet.

An alternative view:

I’m aware of the dark side of this stuff. But I know my daughter, so when she wanted a mask and tail we got them for her. She went out a couple of times to the park etc with a couple of friends similarly kitted out. And then lost interest and a few months later thinks it was “cringe”. I thought it would be a passing fad and it was.

She has limited internet, no Roblox, etc but I think some friends with laxer internet controls at home had found this stuff and she just thought it looked fun and/or wanted to fit in with her friends.

She never claimed to be anything other than human though…

Behave.

At age 11?

I get this at age 6 or 7 but 11 year old are heading to secondary school. They do not usually think they are bloody cats.

This is exactly me and DD. I refused to buy her anything but gave her materials, fabric, etc to make her own stuff. She quickly bored of it and is really into fashion now!

Why does she have limited interests? Get her into hobbies. Guides, cadets, get her offline. No phone at all. Ffs.

op, no. Do not do it. And again, take your child offline.

Hard No..

10 year olds don't really believe they are 'half human, half cat' - they know perfectly well they are entirely human. Tell her that she's getting too old for dressing up in public, in the same way that she's now a bit old to go out dressed in a Disney princess costume. She's not Cinderella. Or a cat.

And I'd completely restrict her internet access. She didn't come up with this dumb idea on her own.

Hi @pombearmum I have a similar child. I don't know if your DD is also autistic as mine is, but IME most girls who are into the therian thing are also autistic.

My DD has no access to social media, no smartphone, no youtube. She found this through a friend who has far more access to these things than my DD is allowed - but what are you supposed to do, when you have a child who struggles to make friends, cut them off from those too?

I found it incredibly hard at first because I am very well aware of adult furries and of the risk of grooming (I work in a related field). I was also aware of children on social media performing "quadrobics" - running around on all fours - which to the children doing it is just fun, but you can be absolutely certain that those following the accounts are not other kids. I was quite panicky about it although I tried not to show that to DD. I didn't get my DD a mask or tail when she asked for it. She made her own versions out of cardboard and old tights, it's the most creative she'd been for a while, which was actually really nice to see. We talked extensively at opportune moments about reality and fantasy, which was hard for her as these are abstract concepts. It turned out she actually had a better handle on it than we thought, but was finding reality very hard to cope with at school so was retreating into the therian fox thing - foxes can run away from humans. We spoke to the SENCO at school and asked that her teacher and 1:1 should not support it as an identity and remind her that it was play, so when she said she was a fox they'd say it's fun to pretend to be a fox, or you're good at pretending to be a fox. They were completely on board and really helped.

She still calls herself a therian but is much more clear about it being pretending to be a fox and no longer thinks she is actually part fox (hilariously she is quite disdainful about the idea of humans thinking they're not human now, I bite my lip and say nothing). She does now have a tail (a present from someone else) and she was delighted with it but I was equally delighted when she said she was going to put it in her dressing up box for when she does dressing up. We're both now happy that she can get on with her dressing up play as she likes and if it's a bit unconventional or young for her age, then that's fine. She still has no SM and no smartphone. I think she will grow out of it.

Good luck. I can tell you that Mumsnet is even more fearful about this than I was, and that any advice to ridicule your child to alter their behaviour is just as harmful as it would be in any other scenario.

She said limited internet. Not interests.