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.

I’ve just had to google what that is! Agree would be a hard no from me and checking internet access.

I thought watching and listening to Minecraft videos was bad enough when my were smaller.

Why do you even need to ask us? Presumably you didn't shag a cat when she was conceived.

Just no

If she shits in a box and eats cat food, crawls around in all fours and can lick her own arse get her the costume. If she can’t tell her that you’ll get her some therapy as she is mentally ill as she is 100% human.

I’ve just been on YouTube to see some of the Therian videos and the teenage angst and mental health concerns alone on there are why you shouldn’t encourage this!

My daughter went through this phase when she was around 9. It's now evolved from therian to more socially accepted cosplays like the evil jester harlequin and some Chinese cosplay

I hateeeeed the therien stage 🙈🙈🙈 it's so embarrassing

But

I let her get on with it. There were certain rules about public - no tails in public - she could wear the paw gloves in public 😅

But we would frequently go to a wood area and she would play wolf and I wold record her doing little jumps and dives through the woodland so she could watch them when we got home 😅 she was diagnosed autistic not long after aha

And she really got into creating therien masks which her and her friends loved doing. Their all into the jester / Chinese stuff now

There apparently is a dark side to the therian stuff, but my daughter just enjoyed pretending she was a wolf 🤷‍♀️

Furries and Therean’s are NOT the same thing.

This is where a lot of people get confused

It's a big no from me.

I have a problem with telling kids that they are amazing and they can do whatever they want to do and be whoever they want to be. It's great to encourage dreams and ambition but you also need to inject a dose of reality in there.

A ten year old child should absolutely not be encouraged to believe they are part cat part human. Of course they will be mocked - I don't understand why you would want that to happen to your child? It is a ridiculous fad and should absolutely not be encouraged and could pave the way for mh problems in the future.

She is ten. What the fuck am I reading! I'm five times her age and don't have clue what she is talking about. How has your 10 year old accessed this information? You have big problems with Internet access at home.

The issue is that she’s describing it as a belief. It’s an ideology which some concerning online communities. It has links to furries which is very fetishistic.

Dressing up / play acting at this age is still within the realms of normal but this isn’t just dressing up.

Book her a session with a therapist rather than indulge this crap.

All this shit is so scary! I’d never even heard of this when I was a child. Isn’t it dress-up? You clown around with some face paint on at a village fete or a headband with ears and then later your mum says it’s time for tea and you take the costume off and eat your dinner and that’s it. I thought that was a normal part of children growing up is a bit of play pretend?! How’s it got this far?

ny daughter and all her friends are this age and definitely know the term. In the same way the are aware of transgender etc.

the main difference is that it’s something they laugh about. I’ve heard other kids in that aged bracket calling each other a furry as an insult. In the same way my generation would’ve used “you’re so gay” as an insult in the early 90s

all children, autistic or not, do get a lot of positive proprioceptive feedback from activities that engage hands and feet - it’s good for the body, senses development and also good for bone density to be jumping around. I do believe many kids crave this movement and if not into sports, try to find other ways. It’s also calming and rewarding.

i don’t have an issue will jumping around in the woods. There no particular issue dressing up; plenty of people join theatre groups etc to do just that. It’s fully believing one is part cat or wolf which has some risks linked, especially with online access.

They also learn it from their peers. My Dd is a similar age and is aware of what furries are (see post above). She’s learned about it from friends/classmates rather than directly online herself so it’s not as simple as policing what they watch online

OP, please tell us how this came about.

You need to step up, get a grip and put an end to this nonsense sharpish. She’s 11 FFS. Therian my arse.

Oh please OP!! Ffs be a parent and stop this shit right now!

So friends just know about this stuff. I had my 11 year old niece over at the weekend and every thing was prefixed with “everyone says”. I had a serious chat with her about this.

They are so young and their friends are telling them all this stuff but it seems as if we adults are frightened of telling them the truth.

You should perhaps stop frothing for long enough to properly read my post. She has limited internet, not interests. She has plenty of hobbies and interests. And only a brick phone.

Fwiw the whole little gang of girls that were briefly into this around Y6 quickly grew out of it. They enjoyed making some masks and doing something together. I expect making it a battleground would have made it into something much bigger than it actually was.

@MNLurker1345no I’m not saying the friends/classmates ‘just know’ they may be learning about it online….its obviously coming from somewhere.

my point is that parents can’t stop their children from finding out about things by policing their internet access as PPs have suggested. We need to accept they will become aware and educate them appropriately as opposed to trying to stop them
finding out about it in the first place

Ask her if she'll eat cat food and shit in a tray.That'll sort it.

This
she’ll become a target for bullies this needs nipping in the bud

Also, cats can’t use phones/ipads/tvs