HELP! My kitten is afraid of my son :(

Hey everyone, I'm having an issue introducing my 4-month-old kitten Luna to "new people".  

Backstory:

Luna was 6 weeks old when we first adopted her.  She was around my son for a week before he went out of state for a couple months to spend time with his (biological) mother.  We've been  really busy in those couple of months, so she hasn't been exposed to anyone but my husband and I.  Now that my son is back home back home, she has been hissing at him and hiding under our bed.  

What can I do to get her better acquainted with my son? I don't want to force her to interact as I'm afraid of her associating negative feelings as a result. Please help!

Just relax and let her get used to him again.  There's no hurry, is there?  Hurrying these things never makes them better.  

My mom's cat is totally xenophobic and won't accept any human other than my mom--she barely tolerates my dad.  Nobody else can touch her.  She jumped up in my lap when I was there sitting in my mom's chair.  I'm lucky I wasn't hurt when she realized I was not her human.  

But your kitten won't be that bad.  I promise.  Don't let your son worry about it.  Have him wait for her to come to him.

Also, he should be the one who puts down the gooshy foods.  That'll help more than anything.

SilkyM said:

 
Just relax and let her get used to him again.  There's no hurry, is there?  Hurrying these things never makes them better.  

My mom's cat is totally xenophobic and won't accept any human other than my mom--she barely tolerates my dad.  Nobody else can touch her.  She jumped up in my lap when I was there sitting in my mom's chair.  I'm lucky I wasn't hurt when she realized I was not her human.  

But your kitten won't be that bad.  I promise.  Don't let your son worry about it.  Have him wait for her to come to him.

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Oh I'm definitely not trying to rush her in anyway, I was just curious if there was anything I could do to help the process along 

Having your son do the feeding is a great idea. Another good bonding tool is interactive play - the idea is that the cat gets so caught up in the 'hunt' that she forgets her fear. Interactive play is a great confidence builder too, so it really is win-win.

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