6yo DS is obsessed with "action"

[CeraMae]

I have a brilliant, imaginative and loving son who has a huge heart and lots of snuggles for everyone. He is very imaginative~ creating entire fantasy worlds in his head, coming up with inventions, etc. What concerns me, is that he is always applying his energy to thinking about "action." Although I don't have TV and limit his media exposure, I am a single mom and can't control everything he sees (nor do I think it is healthy to try and do that). It seems that whenever he sees action movies, or cartoons with lots of conflict, he totally dwells on it. He is regularly acting out fight scenes in his head, making explosive sounds, and the like.

I'm torn, because I try honoring his gift and redirecting him into subjects that are more gentle & calm. However, I also see that it is something that he enjoys and is culturally exposed to at school and at his dad's house.

But I am not going to lie, it totally bothers me when he is playing wonderfully with other kids and then his imagination takes over and he *always* wants to role play good guy-bad guy stuff. And then he gets hyper and ends up hurting or scaring other kids, or not listening, not calming down, etc. I have no idea what to do and I feel exhausted.

Any suggestions?

[MtBikeLover]

I don't have suggestions, but I can commisserate with you. My 7 yo DS is exactly the same way. He is very creative, always making things and drawing things, and is very smart and wise (i had someone describe him by saying he has a wise soul). He is very insightful and caring.

Yet he loves wars and fighting and guns. Last night at dinner, he said "I am really into wars. I find them very interesting." I asked him what interested him and he said the killing and the guns. I said "Well, do you feel bad when someone dies?" He said that he had never really thought of that.

It has always bothered me that he is so into this, but I don't forbid it and I don't make him feel bad for feeling this way. And I allow play guns and swords in our house.

[Alyantavid]

My 7 year old is exactly like that. He's extremely smart, artistic and creative. But he's totally, completely obsessed with war. I guess I don't see it as a bad thing, just something else he's learning about. So we try to educate when he starts with the questions.

Unfortunately, war is a very real thing and I have no problem with him knowing actual facts about it.

[Doodlebugsmom]

My 5 year old son is very much the same. He's been able to make action sound-effects since he was very young. I think it's just in his nature. He would never hurt another person, but he sure likes to put on his boxing gloves and pummel his punching bag that he got for Christmas. We're definite believers in and practitioners of nonviolence. Yet another reason we believe it's just in his nature during this phase of his life.

[Ornery]

Have you seen Raising Cain on PBS? It raises some really interesting questions about this phase of life for young boys and whether or not we, the ones who guide them, are stifling their creative impulses by directing them away from fantasizing about violence. It does differentiate between fantasizing about violence (i.e., making up stories or drawings about war, death, killing, etc.) and them acting out violent tendencies on other children.

My experience has been that my oldest ds (now 14) was not exposed to violence when he was young. I did not allow guns, we did not watch tv, I was very, very, very selective about where we went and what he was exposed to. I completely controlled his environment (I was a young, single mother with no help) and yet, he still had some violent fantasies (not gruesome, just about bad guys and good guys, etc.). He somehow learned how to make a gun out of his hands and was fascinated by it. Occasionally, he would run around "shooting" things with a banana. When people were "killed" they fell over and a minute later, they were right back up and playing. Death was not a concept he really grasped until later. I finally gave in at around age 5 and allowed him to have water guns. He played bad guys and good guys for a few years but was not overly obsessed with it. He now has pretty much free reign in his viewing and reading choices and chooses not to play the gory violent video games.

My dd has never gotten into this phase. Granted she is only 5 so has a few years.

My youngest ds (almost 4) is entering into this phase. I haven't controlled his environment to the extreme like I did with my oldest, although I keep things age appropriate for him, and I see much less emphasis from him on action and violence. I think my attempt at controlling my oldest son really was going against the grain for him.

I guess I have no real suggestions, other than to applaud you for not stifling him. It just sounds like he might need to work on impulse control so that he knows when to stop playing aggressively. It also sounds like he is trying to work through parts of the media that he is exposed to that he might not understand. Even if you don't have control over what he is exposed to, you can help him work through it.

[CeraMae]

Thank you so much for your input. It is such a struggle for me as a pacifist and a female to know how to deal with this issue!
I agree with you Eclipse95, about his issue having to do more with impulse control. He never, ever tries to hurt others and clearly just gets rambunctious and has "casualties" to his carelessness. It's annoying to me to hear him in the other room while I'm cooking dinner, making explosion sounds and wrestling sounds all of the time. I'm sure if I had more men in my life they would help me normalize it
Also, the point that was made about him processing what he sees in the media: I definitely agree. They talk about that a lot in waldorf literature.
I've heard rave reviews about the Raising Cain documentary~ I am going to look on line to see if I can download it somewhere. Thanks again, ladies, for your support

[NightOwlwithowlet]

My seven year son is the same way. He is smart, empathetic, has a great imagination, and tries to rescue every hurt, lost, or dead animal he sees. I feel like I'm living with the sound track of a war movie. The explosions! The machine gun noises! The dramatic falling down, crying out "I'm dying!" He had very little exposure to movies, video games, or even older kids when he was small. The first thing he built with leggos at the age of 20 months? A gun.

On the other hand, he not aggressive, he hasn't laid a hand or tooth on anyone since was he three years old (he did bite a girl when she and her friend had him pinned to the ground and was stuffing rocks in his underwear, he was five). He does martial arts and his instructors say he is very respectful and never aggressive. Raising Cain is great show, the book is good too.

[dawncayden]

My 4 year old son is just like how you describe.

We talk about 'pretend dead' and 'real dead'. Whenever he plays, people die for pretend but he is very saddened that people die for real in this world. I think its just his way of processing things he hears that happens around him.

I love Raising Cain, the book and the documentary.

[flight]

My 9yo is also pretty interested in guns, swords, archery, the military... I try to roll with it, and supply some context. e.g. sometimes he will watch documentaries with his dad about military technology (cool airplanes and big explosions!), and sometimes we will discuss a news article about the soldiers serving in Afghanistan (e.g. should they stay or go, do they miss their families etc.)

One tip I read when DS was a baby was that boys are often very interested in the "good vs. evil" narrative because it helps them process the world. The author of the article - unfortunately I can't remember either - suggested exposing boys to classic literature with that theme. That way you avoid the visual violence in many modern movies.

As for the impulse control problem, I don't know what to tell you, as DS has the same issue! He's an angel around adults, but at Cubs he can't settle down and behave - he seems to get pulled into horsing around with the other kids and can't disengage! (Maybe an only child thing.)

[meemee]

i am a pacifist myself now. i was like your son at that age. i remember running all around fighting using a tree branch as a sword. to me i recall it was all a game. i loved being the bad boy because i loved acting and enjoyed dying.

i personally think kids need some kind of aggression in their life. they are dealing with a lot growing up and aggression is a good way of getting it out. i noticed what a huge effect it had on my dd when she would fight with her friends. she slept better, she seemed much calmer.

i have not read books on it. we have our gyms to go to. what physical things do kids have except for action games to get all the frustrations and extra energy out of their system.

aggressive play is therapy that our kids need badly. doesnt mean they are psychopaths. just means they are trying to figure out how to deal with life.