My 13-year-old stepdaughter identifies as a FOX and jumps around in a mask and tail – now she’s convinced my nine-year-old to act like a GIRAFFE

A woman has sought advice on how to deal with the fact that her 13-year-old stepdaughter identifies as a fox.

The stepmother, Jill, wasn’t sure how to react when she discovered the teen was a “therian” — a person who identifies as a non-human animal — she told the mental health podcast, The Dr. John Delony Show.

“She wears a mask and a tail and has a YouTube channel where she jumps around like a fox in very short shorts,” the shocked woman continued, adding that the girl’s biological mother apparently encouraged the behavior at her home .

Dr. John briefly asked Jill to pause and emphasized that he tries to be “compassionate” outside of his show “in the real world,” adding that he has “worked with young people my entire career, like teenagers and young adults, so nothing surprises me.’

“But the fact that there’s a name for this… I feel like we’re in the Twilight Zone,” he admitted.

The clearly irritated woman continued, “That’s why I’m calling you.

“Because I’m completely at a loss and shocked and it’s a whole thing and there’s a name and there’s terminology and there are things that are offensive to them.”

In an even more bizarre twist, the stepdaughter had apparently also turned Jill’s nine-year-old biological daughter into a therian – with her stepsister now identifying herself as a giraffe, the stunned woman said.

The stepdaughter had also made and posted a video with Jill’s two “young children” at Christmas, which the parents didn’t know about until later.

Jill went on to ask Dr. John whether she should let her own daughter ‘stay a giraffe’ – and more importantly, what rules should I have in my home about the internet, screens and social media?’

“And can I tell my stepdaughter that her cell phone isn’t allowed here?” she added.

“And in general, what kind of relationship should I have with my stepdaughter?

‘Because I’m not her biological parent, but a lot of her influence rests on my home and my daughter, who is absolutely in love with her, adores her, and I’m sure a big reason my daughter does this is is to achieve good results. favors with the stepdaughter.”

Dr. John said his own eight-year-old daughter regularly played pretend while dressed as a princess, and that this behavior was healthy and normal.

“If your child wants to dress up as a giraffe and run around the backyard, I don’t have an inherent problem with that, as long as I understand that she won’t dress like a giraffe when we go out to eat. She’s not going to dress like a giraffe when friends come over,” he explained of the boundaries around the child’s preferences.

“Because you don’t ‘identify as’ – that language is just madness. It’s so strange that we’re even having this conversation.’

He further urged parents to stop “cringing one eye” at the behavior – and rather look at it with “two (eyes) wide open.”

When Dr. John asked Jill where her husband was in all of this, she replied, “It seems like he’s in a place where he feels like it doesn’t matter what he says to the stepdaughter or her mother – they’re going to do what they doing. they’re going to do it… at their home.’

She added that the father had told “absolutely not” months ago to the daughter who had a YouTube channel, but the birth mother and her daughter launched one anyway.

The father especially had difficulty with the daughter livestreaming herself – and Dr. John intervened to emphasize that the vast majority of all viewers were, in all likelihood, ‘grown men’.

“When you give a child a smartphone, you don’t give him access to the world – you give the world access to him,” he declared.

“This is a video channel for grown men,” he speculated about the teen’s presence on YouTube.

“It gave me chills that any adult would let their child do this.”

He also expressed concern that the stepdaughter’s online behavior could expose her to sexual predators.

Besides her safety being an issue, Dr. John further explains that amid the rapid physical changes of early adolescence, children want to know who their parents are: ‘Do you see me? Do you all see me? And do you really love me?’

“Children, especially teenagers, are incredibly vulnerable to positive feedback loops,” he pointed out.

Jill interjected: “My heart breaks for her – that’s exactly what she’s saying: she doesn’t feel seen or heard by the adults in her life. You know, she’s in therapy and stuff.”

Dr. John then advised Jill to have the father call his daughter’s therapist – adding that parents of minors are covered by doctor-patient confidentiality laws in most states.

Jill added that her stepdaughter “has been in regular therapy for years, and it’s almost like no one knows what to do with her.”

“And you know what, she’s not a bad kid. She is very respectful and helps my kids and does the dishes,” she said.

“There’s just something else going on in the other house.”

Jill also added that her stepdaughter was looking for “anime porn” and on other occasions was caught being intimate in a closet with other girls.

Dr. John urged Jill to focus on what she had control over as a parent, setting firm rules about phone and YouTube use when the stepdaughter was under her roof.

“What she needs from you – I love the word Dr. Becky Kennedy uses – she needs strength. She needs sturdy parents who will stand there in the storm while the wind rages, because that wind is already thirteen years old,” Dr. stressed. John.

‘You’re playing a ten-year game with her. You want her to turn around at 26 and say, “Those two people never stopped fighting for me, and they really cared about me.”

As for the nine-year-old, Dr. John insisted that her imagination would not be “crushed” – as long as she understood that she was not a giraffe.

Jill said she was okay with the preoccupation with giraffes insofar as it was a creative outlet for her daughter, but she was “not okay with her posting it for likes and subscribers and to get validation from outside sources.”

Dr. John confirmed that online attention is a “cheap version of what affirmation is.”

“But for many millions of kids holding a smartphone, it’s all they have,” he noted.

Jill echoed, “So I’m going to have to backtrack a little bit because we need to set up some rules with the stepdaughter about cell phone use and we’re not okay with her posting to my kids. on her YouTube channels.”

Dr. John said that when they sit down and have a conversation about the issue, the parents should take full responsibility and apologize for not setting boundaries sooner.

“But be very clear about what your goals are, why you want to do these things, what your boundaries are going to be, write them down, open the conversation and do it over a meal.” And say, ‘This is going to be hard, but you know we love you and we know we have one job: to keep you safe,'” he said.

He concluded, “I’m sorry, Jill. That’s tough, it’s tough being a stepparent who feels powerless. It’s hard to be with a man who says, “I’m exhausted.” And you can’t stop. And this strange world where kids run their own TV shows, live.

‘And now we have entered the therian world… I have no words for it. It’s just madness.

“At the same time, we have a crisis of innovation and imagination in our world, and so I don’t want to use my imagination and fun and play and build and run around and be giraffes.

‘But you have to stay anchored in the real world. You have to stay anchored in reality.

‘And you have to maintain some kind of decorum. As a culture we cannot throw all decorum overboard, because then you get anarchy, then you get chaos.’

Jill’s stepdaughter isn’t the only young person to openly identify herself as an animal lately.

Naia Ōkami, from Seattle, insists she identifies as a wolf “on all levels except physically,” as DailyMail.com has reported.

In 2023, DailyMail.com also reported on the broader ‘rise of the therians’ as a trend, with much of the momentum coming from TikTok.