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Originally Posted by the_lissa
 I don't agree that gun or kill play is inevitable with boys. My brothers never did. My male classmates never did. My daughter's male classmates don't. My son does not. How would they even know what guns or killing is at this age (2 and 4)?
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) but i wanted to chime in. my ds is almost 8. he did the *exact same thing* when he was younger. same story. we didn't have TV, i controlled the videos that came into the house, etc. yet he made "shooters" out of toast. i have no idea how they know, but they do.
i mean seriously, at that point his life was very sheltered. weird.|
Originally Posted by annethcz
Like others have mentioned, we do have rules about respectful playing. No pointing a gun at a person without their consent, no playing rough without the playmate's consent, stop immediately if your playmate says 'stop,' etc.
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Originally Posted by dawncayden
If you want to play with someone they need a sword too. If ds hits someone with a sword that doesn't have one, he gets a warning, and the second time the sword is put away.
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yet he loves, loves "violent" play. i've had to let a lot of my own stuff go, about that. the rules above still apply, though 
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Originally Posted by Bleu
Here's what I want to know: for those who permit pretend guns, why the rule about no pointing it at people's heads/faces? Why the rule about no "killing" talk? What is the point of that rule? What is the point of having and playing with a pretend gun if you can't use it for its primary purpose? Doesn't having that toy and that rule result in a lot of either parent interference in play, or sneakiness?
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Originally Posted by earthmamma22
The problem I'm having right now is the boys band together to "fight the girls." They chase the girls (these are girls they have been playing with weekly for 3 years) and "shoot them up" with sticks they find at the park. The girls don't like it. They yell "no girls allowed" and say "we are going to kill them."
When this starts, I stay right by my son and tell him that he is hurting the girls feelings and that is not OK. If he continues, we leave the park. Problem is, other moms just let it continue. My son, 4, is mad at me for not letting him play the game with the other boys. So... should I quit playgroup?? Will this just pass? Do all boys/girls do this?? I hate this! |
| Here's what I want to know: for those who permit pretend guns, why the rule about no pointing it at people's heads/faces? Why the rule about no "killing" talk? What is the point of that rule? What is the point of having and playing with a pretend gun if you can't use it for its primary purpose? Doesn't having that toy and that rule result in a lot of either parent interference in play, or sneakiness? |
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Originally Posted by Bleu
Here's what I want to know: for those who permit pretend guns, why the rule about no pointing it at people's heads/faces? Why the rule about no "killing" talk? What is the point of that rule? What is the point of having and playing with a pretend gun if you can't use it for its primary purpose? Doesn't having that toy and that rule result in a lot of either parent interference in play, or sneakiness?
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Originally Posted by jaidymama
Actually, what I have observed, of the boys who I know well, the ones who have watched mainstream movies play bad guy/good guy, killing, shooting, etc. The ones who do not watch movies and cartoons do not (like my ds and a couple of his friends).
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Originally Posted by mamadebug
I think it is important that we talk about being kind, gentle and peaceful, and live and model that as parents. I know there are people who won't agree with me on this, but I think trying to direct play, or encourage kids to play a certain way, isn't healthy. They have all of these thoughts and experiences they are processing, and play is one of the big ways they process it. I think a child will be shaped much more by what they are experiencing in real life with kind, peaceful parents than what they play games of, especially if the games are generated from the kids.
I think the difference between having boundaries about not hurting or teasing and having boundaries about pretend killing is that hurting and teasing are real and cause real pain, physical or emotional, and playing gun games do not as long as all kids involved in the game are comfortable with it/enjoying it. They know they it is play, the dynamic and energy surrounding it are much different than really trying to hurt someone and it allows them to play with what they are processing in their own way. Every parent has to decide what they are comfortable with, though, and set a guideline. In doing so around this issue, I have had to make sure I am not assigning my adult meaning to child's play. |
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Originally Posted by sanguine_speed
One of my major concerns around the issue of playing guns or pretending to shoot 'bad guys' is the idea that 'bad guys' are seen as the 'other'. I think it's very dangerous to raise kids to believe that there are people who are just inherently bad, and that it's okay to attack or dispense with them because "they are bad". It's a scary road. It reminds me of many people's views of 'terrorists'. 'They' are bad and we can do what we want to them because they are defective, inferior, evil, just made that way...
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Originally Posted by Bleu
Here's what I want to know: for those who permit pretend guns, why the rule about no pointing it at people's heads/faces? Why the rule about no "killing" talk? What is the point of that rule? What is the point of having and playing with a pretend gun if you can't use it for its primary purpose? Doesn't having that toy and that rule result in a lot of either parent interference in play, or sneakiness?
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Originally Posted by jaidymama
I don't understand how there are differences in a parent's view of something and a child's view of something. I get that children are still learning so arent' fully aware of what they do. For instance, adults know that guns hurt/kill. Children don't necessarily understand that; they don't necessarily understand death. But somehow that doesn't equate to me, and somehow I'm left wondering if we're allowing something just because.
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pretend machine gun. whatever play they do 'peacefully together' I enjoy.
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Originally Posted by Maiasaura
the person who posted that (about kids thinking differently) is correct. kids DO think differently. their brains are still developing, and some parts aren't completely on-line yet. they *can't* think as adults do.
for example, here is an experiment that you can do with kids. take one who's way young, say 3-4-5yo, and show them two tall, rather thin beakers of liquid, exactly the same. ask if they are the same. make sure the kid has looked them over and decided that they are. now tell them to watch you carefully. pour one of them into a low, wide, shallow bowl. then ask if the two are now the same. the kid will tell you that now the one that's in the low, shallow bowl has more. make sure you ask them why it's more. "because it just is". "because it's wider". they do not have the developmental capability to see that just because the shape of the container changes, the amt. of liquid stays the same. they can't do that until they are at least 8yo, on the average. my almost 8yo still thinks if you smoosh your baked potato so it's mashed, you will have more potatoes. i know that's nothing to do with guns and play, but it's an example of how the brain comes on-line with certain developmental tasks. their frontal lobes take till past teenage years to fully develop. they can't think and reason like adults do. i like the post about the difference btw shooting and killing-- that was right-on, i think! just a FYI |
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Originally Posted by Magella
The aggression in child's play serves the purpose of exploring their personal power, and the reality of their aggressive urges and of danger in the world. They cannot comprehend, in the preschool years, the finality of death and don't think of the act of killing as bringing death--within the context of play they are far more likely to think of "killing" as "making someone fall down" and "dead" as "laying on the floor." I think that it is very, very important to recognize the value of this kind of play. It's about coping, about trying to understand the world and events, about trying to understand their feelings and urges, about exploring power. For example, I know of a child whose father died in one of the towers on 9/11. This child spent a lot of time building towers and then crashing planes into them, killing people. This was his way of working through his feelings, and of trying to understand this tragic event. This kind of thing is valuable, and not limited to experiencing tragedy. Kids are aware of the culture around them, and aware of their feelings and aggressive urges, and aware that danger exists: but they do not understand these things the way adults do. The purpose of their aggressively-themed play is to work through these ideas: it relieves any tension, it's an outlet for exploration, and it's an attempt to understand their world. And yes, because it is play it is fun. Play is the work of children. All this is what I mean when I say kids understand these things differently. And I think that allowing children to explore these themes through play, which is how kids explore and learn and cope, is not remotely the same as going along with racist or chauvinist jokes told by adults. Knowing what I know about children's cognitive development and the purpose of play, and I wish I had time to find links about all this but I don't at the moment, I just cannot get behind placing too many limits on play of this kind. I think there are other ways, besides disallowing a type of play, to address issues of violence. JMHO. ETA: I meant to also say that wrt to categorizing people as "good" and "bad" in play, kids of preschool age simply can't see the middle ground (at least not to the extent that adults are capable). Their categorizing of people is the result of their noticing the differences between people (or things) and trying to understand that. It's a stage everyone passes through. In our home, we addressed things like "girl colors and boy colors" when it came up in conversation, discussing that boys and girls can like the same colors--but when the kids were playing with each other, and within their play were saying "this is a boy's color, so you can't wear it," we let it go. This was play, and part of the function of having boys and girls color in play was to work through how the world works and people are different. And that stage passes. Likewise with "good guys" and "bad guys." Now, there are adults who think men don't wear pink (it's a woman's color) just as there are adults who think in terms of "good people and bad people" and don't see much middle ground. But I don't think playing good guys vs. bad guys is the cause of that. I think it's possible to address the issue of good people/bad people/just people without forbidding that in play. For our family, that comes up in conversation (when the kids ask questions), or when reading books with themes like that--and that becomes the springboard for teaching about what we think on the issue (which is that people aren't just good or bad). But play is where kids play with these ideas, trying them on, trying to understand--on their terms, without adults interfering too much. For me, it wasn't fair to say "you can't play that, it's wrong:" they couldn't see the gray areas, they just weren't there yet cognitively and asking them to not see the world in categories was asking them to do something they weren't yet capable of; and it seemed as though I was telling them that something was wrong with them that they wanted to play that way (it is, for many kids if not most, a natural stage to play games where people and things are categorized and with some level of aggression-remembering that aggression takes many forms). Now, we did have rules to keep everyone safe (yk, like no swinging things at people, and when someone says stop when you're wrestling you stop) and when they had toy guns (gifts) they were not allowed to point them at people. But we tried to keep our rules to a minimum, and to allow fantasy play so long as it was safe. There is just so much time for kids to learn about all these things, and so many ways for them to learn it. And play is so valuable, even when it sometimes involves themes we adults aren't particularly comfortable with--and if we have concerns about the play, rather than forbidding it I find I accomplish much more by talking about it with the kids. |
