They/them-Therian???

I need some help and advice. Daughter is 9yo Claiming she is therian and not Human-“she is a fox” And solely believes a spirit/mother nature told her that she is a therian She wants to wear a mask, the tail, the paws, is jumping around the house doing “quads”, watching the videos the whole 9. I am 100% completely against this and her father (my ex husband) is egging it on saying she is using her “imagination” and offering to make a mask with her when u explicitly said no. Said “it’s just a phase”, but a phase can turn into something serious and I am NOT ok with this. A counselor friend of mine told me to contact her school counselor but I’m not trying to embarrass her further . But it has gotten to the point where she screamed in my face that she is not a normal human and that she is a therian which her dad says “that’s between you two” And then lied to her dad today saying oh I only said that because I was mad at her … What do I do?.. I feel so lost, I have no backup parental support on this, anything I say no to, he does the complete opposite and I just am fed up.

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I guess it’s really hard to understand her seriousness over just this post alone. Does it come across as like obsessive and serious or just playful? Like as kids, I totally remember a huge aspect of imaginary play in my childhood but I wouldn’t say to this extent. I would say it’s reaching a concerning point. If I was in this position, I would approach it differently. I think I would try to understand her more in the sense where I was to figure out where the egg this obsessiveness/idea came from. You don’t need to tell her it’s okay or normal but just kinda be neutral to it. Figure out if it could be school, social media? Where was this idea planted because it came from somewhere. Once you figure that out, I think it will become more clear what to do and how to avoid going further down this path. Kids are so freaking fragile and sadly they’re being influenced by absolute ridiculousness.

Also like what movies is she watching? I seriously believe today’s society just introduces very abnormal things at such a young vulnerable and impressionable age. Does she have access to social media unsupervised? Are there kids in her school that are “therian?” Adults? Are they teaching this in school? So many questions.

I have no experience or expertise in this area. Just curious if she watches Netflix and/or saw Avatar the Last Airbender? There's a girl in that show who is a fox in the spirit world who ends up being a really important character in the end...

They/them and being non-binary is totally understandable, but the believing they’re an animal is crossing into funky territory. I think finding a gender affirming therapist is a great start, so that they can discuss their gender identity, but also figure out why they are an animal lol. I know a lot of people who thought the same thing when I was a teen, it was very popular in the geek/artist community I was a part of. Now that they’re adults, they’re usually part of furry communities. You could introduce that as an option? Look into furry communities for preteens? Furry communities don’t have to be sexual, so finding a kid friendly group to play like that might be a good outlet for her to explore her imagination. Overall, I can see this as being a bit of an imagination factor because she is still pretty young. BUT I would also keep an eye on what her internet use is and what her friends might be showing her. Having words for these things means she MIGHT be seeing some “stuff”.

lol I’m also SO sorry for my wall of text 💀

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