I work at a 24/7 daycare and today one of the kids told me he thinks he's trans. He (I'll use he/him pronouns since that's what he still uses) said he'd talked to his mom & siblings about it before & that his mom is supportive, while his older brother said he'd kill him if he ever "turned into" a girl. I just answered his questions about transitioning & told him you just gotta do what makes you you & that there will always be people who love & support him no matter what.

I guess I was his go-to person since he knows I'm trans & tbh I'm one of the only people at that daycare who treats the kids like people.

So anyways, after our talk, he told my coworker & she was supportive & said maybe just be patient bc he wanted to tell the whole daycare and change his name immediately.
I just do not know how to handle this situation, especially since this little kid is wanting to move really fast & pick a name in like five minutes & explain his gender to the three year olds. Also, my boss (the owner of the daycare) is transphobic. She refuses to use my pronouns (he/him...it's not that hard) and told this kid that he's too young to know anything and to just stop.

Can I get any advice on this? I barely know how to handle kids in the first place & this is such a tricky subject.

This is a situation that needs the parental input before you can do anything. The parent(s) need to talk to the childcare centre on how they want their child treated. The parents also need to contact a paediatrics psychologist/endocrinology/gender unit for assistance.

You need to be very careful to protect yourself from possible child abuse allegations from phobic people or a parent who may not agree.

Quote from: Cindy on June 27, 2016, 06:59:59 PM
This is a situation that needs the parental input before you can do anything. The parent(s) need to talk to the childcare centre on how they want their child treated. The parents also need to contact a paediatrics psychologist/endocrinology/gender unit for assistance.

You need to be very careful to protect yourself from possible child abuse allegations from phobic people or a parent who may not agree.

OK I was careful not to say much today aside from answering a few questions & saying it's OK if he feels this way. I'll definitely keep that in mind. I don't have a lot of authority in the hierarchy of daycare supervisors, but I figure the kid will say something to his parents tonight & they might talk to my boss.

I would be careful that he doesn't look up to you and wants to be just like you.

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If it were me, I'd be careful about expanding the kid's knowledge without authorization. I would use the technique of cold reading essentially, where the child's information is simply fed back to him  or her in a way at seems new, but really isn't. Basically exploring what the child thinks, rather than communicating what you think.