Help, my 3 year old thinks she's a cat

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I do not think of food allergies and sensitivities as auto-immune. Auto-immune is something like Lupus, which might be a co-morbid with autism, not a linked cause or contributor. My son has loose joints, a very common co-morbid, but no one is suggesting that loose joints somehow increases the odds of having autism. Depression and anxiety are also common co-morbids; they aren't considered potential contributing factors, either. I am aware that certain conditions like mitochondrial issues may allow vaccination to create a condition that is very similar to autism, but for purposes for knowing how to raise kids and what to avoid in life I think it's important to think of that as a mimic, and not autism as we know it on this forum. Pull out that one case, and I don't know what "proven" link you have. From what I've read, none. Which wouldn't matter except that whole theory is keeping parents from vaccinating their kids, and that hole in the herd protection is costing the lives of infants too young for vaccination. On the one side we've got a psuedo science theory, and on the other we've got infants dead from whopping cough. Which leaves me pretty angry hearing anything that sounds like those theories.

I don't deny that trying to figuring out diet sensitivities has helped a lot of individuals, and we've discussed that often here. But one lucky strike (the original proponents, after all, still haven't learned to split the hairs properly and get to the right solution for each individual, for the simple reason that they don't know "why" it works) does not make the rest of the theories valid. I am far, far out of the vaccination-auto immune-bio feed back. I've seen far too many lost dollars, family time investment and other costs expended to create kids who are faring not one ounce better than mine. Those theories come from people wishing to make money from desperate parents, and I refuse to buy into it lock, stock and barrel. But I will give credit for discovery that diet changes can affect improvement, even if GFCF is more like the sledge hammer trying to kill the fly; it did, at least, get some families pointed in a productive direction.

I always felt I was supposed to have been born a cat (or some other animal) and my parents strongly discoraged it. I STILL feel that way. We didn't have a pet cat as a kid and still felt that way. A lot of people here have a special intrest in cats and claim to feel more like cats than people. It makes me wonder if there are more aspies involved in the furry community. As a kid, the advantages of being an animal far outweighed the advantages of being a person. My parents and older brothers made me feel stupid and other children were bullies so perhaps the only ones I felt I could trust were cats and animals.

How about feed the cats people food.

aww it is darling, it would also be pretty entertaining to see her doing it

I have a friend from Belarus, and he told me that back in his home country, they didn't start selling pet food in stores until 1992 (this refers to brand names like Whiskas or Pedigree). Before then, imported products were few and far between, and pet food was a virtually nonexistent concept. So what did people feed their pets? That's right: human food; table scraps, to be exact. Most people fed them things that were cumbersome, unsafe, or unpleasant for people to eat: chicken feet, fish heads, meat that sat in the fridge for too long, bones, stale bread, etc. Wealthier families simply cooked low grades of meat and fish in a manner similar to people food, and used to feed their pets.

We had a dog that lived to be seventeen (an Irish setter golden retriver cross) and she basicaly lived on table scraps. We didn't give her things that could hurt her, just what we were too full to eat.

I find the idea that letting a child pretend to be a cat is somehow wrong hilarious. You only have to put 'children's cat costume' into google to see how perfectly normal it is for children to do this. My daughter had a hat with cat ears and gloves that were paws and a tail that pinned to the back of her coat that she wore all the time when she was little, and society hasn't collapsed yet.

She also used to roughly manhandle the cat in a way that really worried me. But there is something about little girls and cats. It's one of the mysteries of the universe. A little girl can do things to a cat and get away with it, that if you or I were to do, we'd end up needing stitches. 13 years on, my cat adores my daughter and follows her everywhere. If I were the cat I wouldn't want to be in the same country as her.

You are over-reacting. Most children have a "special interest" when they are very young that they are absolutely fixated on. It's very common for children to emulate animals, or insist they are a certain animal, or person, or thing.

My brother insisted he was a power ranger until he decided he was an explorer instead.

People dress up as vampires for Halloween but they don't go around sucking people's blood. The child in this thread is actually eating from a bowl on the floor, that should send any sane person's alarm bells ringing.



I hope most kids who emulate animals don't regularly get on the floor and start eating from a bowl or using the litter tray. There is a difference between pretending to be an animal in a light hearted way and actually mimicking behaviours of an animal in real time. If the kid is pretending to be an animal but strictly knows that they are human and the animal behaviour is a fantasy, then everything is ok.



So if your brother started beating the s**t out of people or booking flights to another country then you wouldn't be worried? The child is actually doing things what a cat does at an instinctual level - eating from the floor and so on. Sounds like a bad habit and bad manners to me.

Cats are better than people. So I'd personally recommend just finding a food that she likes and making sure that she's litterbox trained.

Well, it's not harmful for your daughter to want to be a cat. People with Asperger's Syndrome have very catlike qualities. Maybe she was a kitten in her previous life. I think I was a cat too, and then I was turned into a human.

There's even a book about it LOL

That's so true ! Cats are the only "person" I can socialize with easily. I've always said I was raised by cats.

I used to pretend I was a cat too... well... actually, at first I did think I was some kind of cat with a human body, I didn't eat cat food nor did I use a litterbox though, but I kept playing this game when I was 14 and it was quite strange for everyone else. There's already plenty of good advice on this thread. She's young and young children tend to see the world differently, perhaps you could try to give her human food cats are supposed to like and tell her that many cats have learnt successfully to use the toilets.
She'll probably change later if you explain her nicely that she isn't a cat and that it should be just a game.

I used to pretend to be a Velociraptor when I was little. I would run around pretending to be a dinosaur when ever my parents took me out. I also knew pretty much every fact about dinosaurs in general. I eventually grew out of it. I didn't pretend to be a cat but I have two cats now and I like to mimic them when I play with them, which is funny cause my one cat is not very friendly and I'm the only person she'll let pet her.

I have an idea. If she does people things, for the entire day, until supper time, than she can have one or two hours of cat time, after supper.

Resricting acess to special intrests is always a bad idea.

What is it with autistic kids and cats??? My son was this way at 3 too...I mean, we didn't have a cat, but he acted like a cat...his halloween costume was of a CAT...sigh...he still chases cats where we live...he loves cats...he will make cat noises off and on, although it has improved greatly (he's 9)...good luck...I know it feels weird...especially when others are around...they must think we have our kids locked up living with cats...sigh...