My carrot son and Rosie daughter

I absolutely adored Tony Hancock and his humour in my youth and my sister started calling me Tub TH’s nickname. I am now 72 and she still calls me Tub ?

It seems often children's phases are taken far too seriously and should be allowed to run their course as other posters have said. Time will tell if there is an underlying reason.

Love your imaginary friend Sara .

I had an imaginary fried, he was called Willy, I think my mum was horribly embarrassed by the whole thing!

I think there are children who decide they are not of the gender they are born with and sympathetic understanding is needed . It is when the fleeting ideas as mentioned byGA ,are taken up by the adults and emphasised that problems arise .
One of my girls had an invisible friend , we knew she would lose the friend so didn't go to extremes with it , she has no memory of it now
Now ducking out of view !

One of my daughters would only answer to Bright Light for a while, heaven knows where that came from. I have photos of my son dressed in princess outfits, my grandson, age six, had a doll for Christmas.
These are all aspects of childhood, my son, as far as I know, no longer dresses up as Cinderella, though if he wants to, I don’t really mind. But the point being is that, children are to some extent gender neutral, but they generally find their own path, without our help

We were talking about this today. DGS3 would only answer to Sam (as in Fireman) and the rest of the family were other members of the TV programme. He has grown out of it.

My elder son was called 'Pullis' for a while, no idea where it came from but we dutifully called him Pullis until one day he decided he wanted his real name back.

I believe very little I read in the press, so it didn't surprise me to read she is not actually 'raising her boy as a girl' (no doubt the reporter felt this made a better story) but has made it clear she will support them whoever they are.

I don't quite know how one 'raises a boy as a girl' anyway, that sounds too much like coercion, something this lady is determined not too.

My sons had dolls and trains played with both.

We had a dressing up box and if I didn't value my life so much I could show you a photo of my younger boy (now 6ft 7 and a weight lifter) along with his friend, in lacy nighties and shawls, earring and beads about their necks. They would be 6 or 7 .

If either boy had wanted a dress I would have bought one and when they were old enough to truly understand I told them their sexual orientation, whatever it was or turned out to be would be fine with me.

I had heard so many horror stories of boys with AIDS being rejected by their families (how could anyone DO that?) I was determined mine would always be sure of my unconditional love and support.

Yes, my eldest daughter decided at the age of 4 that her name was Pamela, and like your daughter refused to answer to her own name. It was also around this time that we were no longer called Mummy & Daddy but used our Christian names when she addressed us.....we found it amusing and didn’t react....like your daughter she soon went back to using her own name and again we became Mummy & Daddy. Let children be children.

No...none of my AC, GC or GGC have yet deviated or shown any inclination to deviate from the sex they were born as, nor have any of them decided to dress in the clothing traditionally worn by the opposite sex. None of them use other names either.
All simply were and are 'traditional' children/adults.

Last sentence should read
'Deciding, at 3 years old that it's ok for them to identify as a different gender from the one they were assigned at birth, is not a good decision'

"They were born who they are and exactly where in the world both of them get to find themselves as they grow up, and who they want to be, is not for me to decide"

Well actually Ms Theron, when your child is only 3 years old you do have to take decisions on their behalf.
And deciding, at 3 years old, that their gender is not the one they were born with is not a good decision.