Utkarsh NarangFounder, IgnitedNeurons · Your best doers become your worst managers as you scale. I turn them into leaders so your best people don’t leave.

Child Says They’re a Table | The Deeper Psychology of Identity

19 Aug 2025 · 2 min

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1:30

A parent shares their child says they identify as a table. A facilitator explains how to respond: listen without judgment, ask questions, and validate their self-expression before interpreting it. The goal is creating space for kids to explore identity safely.

Chapters

A parent raises their hand in a in a town hall, and now I know was just trying to be cheeky and was trying to prove a point. Sometimes I feel you have come here to improve your points, or you have come here to prove a point. Like I don't know. So he goes like, "Firoz, all this is fine. I understand. I understand what you mean." But the other day, my child comes to me and tells me they identify with a table, and they are a table. What what do I say to that? It is not even LGBTQI plus. You know, you are talking about all this identity and sexual. My child said, I identify as a table dad. I would like to be a table. There's this stunned silence in the room, like just pin drop, like really. I'm looking at everyone and as the facilitator in me, I'm like, I definitely have a take on this. But I said, parents, what do you all feel about what you just heard from XYZ? One parent who is a parent of an LGBTQ child stands up and goes like, I think you have another problem then. This is not an LGBTQI problem. If your child feels they are a table, this is another problem altogether. I'm like, good job! Great idea! Good job in identifying that. Have you, first of all, as a parent, built a safe space for the child to even discuss this? That, Dad, what is this? What does this mean? Or why? You are not seeing this as a child's affront behavior. You are clearly not. And you have not cleared— created a space for the child to be even okay in telling you.