Do you let your kids play with toy guns? Do you restrict their play to water guns and not BB guns? Or do you give them free rein as long as they don’t get carried away with it? Is it all over-hyped precaution or is it an important principle to teach kids?
This is a comment by Todd, Mike, CJ Cat on the post “Kids and Toy Guns: Pretend Battles Rage On, Long Past Newtown“.
Todd said:
I understand the conflicted feelings, but I also know that kids will make a gun out of just about anything. Long before my son ever owned a toy Nerf gun, he was making them out of Legos, Tinker Toys, even out of his sandwich. As I child, I made them from sticks and whatever else I could find outside. The key is the engagement with your child about what is real and what is not — what is appropriate and what is not.
Mike said:
What if the act of play killing is their was of visualizing and experimenting with violence, and your guidance than help shape their emotional reaction to it, and how they eventually feel about guns and violence? So then the play violence could actually be a good thing. Either way, having thoughtful, involved parents is more important than the play and plaything.
Also, we forget that the violence on TV and movies is also portrayed with melodramatic sadness when a good guy is killed. For me at least, that has a significant impact.
CJ Cat said:
I totally agree that you need to just let your kids’ imagination roll. If that means they play with imaginary guns, then so be it.
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Photo credit: Flickr / Makuahine Pa’i Ki’i
Most boys will play with some kind of make believe weapon. When we were kids, if we saw a movie with Knights in shining armor or ancient Romans, next day we were outside with garbage can lids(our shields) and wooden swords. If we were watching a WW II movie (which interested us since our Fathers fought in it) we had toy guns . Our role-play games satisfied our curiosity and then we grabbed our sports gear (Baseball gloves, Basketball, whatever we were playing that day) and we’re off. Of all the guys I grew up with, at least the ones… Read more »
What did boys play with before guns were invented? Bows and arrows. What did they play with before bows and arrows were invented? Have boys always played with weapons? Seems to me the problem is that our psyche, our psychology, can’t keep up with technology. Here we are with guns and we don’t know how to handle them safely. We’re doing a terrible job of handling guns in this overcrowded world. And our boys want to play with toy guns simply because, in their minds, they are an awesome invention. If boys need to play with weapons, why would they… Read more »