Little boys and guns...

[Anonymous]

I'm another mom of a son who has picked up the gun thing out of thin air. He is definitely way cuddled and his dad is equally horrified by gunplay, so it's not gender expectations. It may be school or the neighborhood pool, where I've been surprised to see other parents way less hyper about the gun thing. Maybe they've just been eroded by the persistence of this part of childhood play. It really is omni present - I was secretly a little relieved to see that our friend's son at a super-exclusive fancy preschool was way more obsessed than our kid -- and there I'm sure the parents and teachers are more vigilant about this stuff.

The best advice I heard/read was on this board (I think) a few months ago - a mom with a husband or relative was in law enforcement or the military, who took the approach that kids should know that guns are dangerous instruments, that can hurt people, and that they only belong in the hands of trained professionals. My son now can recite that only soldiers and policemen are supposed to have guns to keep us safe (although this too has elicited some lengthy conversations about whether firefighters or EMTs need them too.) Beyond this, we've tried not to make a federal case out of it - we've discouraged the word itself but he still "wooshes" people/things at times and he's just as annoying with a squirter as the other kids at the pool are with their squirt guns. (Thankfully on that count, all these have recently been banned by the lifeguards!)

[Anonymous]

No tv at our our house until two.

[Anonymous]

Some little boys play war. It may upset our sense of the culture we want to pass on but they do it, with pretend guns or pretend arrows or pretend ambushes.

Some little girls play "pretty" - wanting to dress up, wear sparkley things, even with tomboy moms and no access to magazines, etc. That's the way it is. I hope my daughter doesn't value herself based on her looks but I can't stop her from wanting to be pretty at age 4.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No tv at our our house until two.

And this has what, exactly, to do with OP's son who starting using household items as guns/swords at age three after NOT having been exposed to violent entertainment?

Is there someone just combing through posts today to throw in inflammatory one-liners barely, if at all, related to the topic just to start a war? This is at least the third random one I've seen today.

[Anonymous]

OP I can relate. The only movie/TV that my two DSs have seen that has a gun in it is The Sound Of Music. I don't even let my kids watch Bambi! However, they do pick up a lot of this from kids at pre-school. My older son knows about Star Wars, Transformers, Power Rangers, etc -- even though his has never seen a show or a book featuring these characters.

Anyway, I think a good deal of it is nature. It started with sticks and any other object that can be used as a stick. While I will let my son pick up and examine sticks -- once he starts swinging it near people -- he loses it and gets a time out. I cannot tell you the number of toys we've had to throw out because the kids used them to hit each other. Let me just say that the toy golf clubs were not such a great idea .

Anyway, my kids know that mommy and daddy don't like guns and they know that killing is very bad, but I can still sense that there is just an internal desire in them to do battle because they love idea of the competition and being the conquering heroes (not sure where they get this from since we don't read those types of books!). In some ways I dread elementary school because I know that even more of their innocence will be lost as they are exposed to more kids for longer periods of time and begin to feel more of the peer pressure.

FWIW to some of the other posters who think it is related to parenting -- my boys do have a toy kitchen, they have their own cleaning supplies (i.e., mops, brooms, vacuum, etc) and they do get a kick out of playing with my purses and shoes. My kids don't have these toys because I'm trying to fight some battle of the gender stereotypes, they have them because my children showed an interest in them and I am the type of mom who encourages learning through exploration. My husband is also very active participant and supporter to this type of parenting.

[Anonymous]

war, death, bad guys fighting good guys, heroes rescuing those in trouble and destroying the bad guys, sending bad guys to jail. these are major themes that interest my son and define his play. when at about 3 he started using brooms as shotguns, i was startled and horrified. at first i lectured. it felt squelching. then i got over myself. it seems very very important to many children, boys and girls, to work and play through this stuff. because he's an only child, i play with him. sometimes we're on the same team, sometimes i'm the bad guy, sometimes the good, sometimes i "die" and he brings me back to life with a kiss. it seems to me there's nothing unnatural in children being interested in these subjects. playing *with* my son, and sometimes shooting at him with a pretend gun, allows him to be able to work through what are obviously deeper issues such as feeling powerful and powerless. now that my son's almost 5, there's less shooting, more talking. our playing together seems to have built a lot of trust.