Is there a form of "type safe" casting in Java?

I can't think of a way in the language itself, but you can easily emulate it like this:

ChildA child = (obj instanceof ChildA ? (ChildA)obj : null);

In java 8 you can also use stream syntax with Optional:

    Object o = new Integer(1);

    Optional.ofNullable(o)
            .filter(Number.class::isInstance)
            .map(Number.class::cast)
            .ifPresent(n -> System.out.print("o is a number"));

You can use this method which is compatible with all java types :

public static <T> T safeCast(Object o, Class<T> clazz) {
    return clazz != null && clazz.isInstance(o) ? clazz.cast(o) : null;
}

Example :

// A given object obj
Integer i = safeCast(obj, Integer.class);