dd terrified of guns - dosen't want to leave the house

[LurkerOfTheUniverse]

My dd is coming up for 6 yo, just moved up to year 1

she's quite an anxious child anyway, but she burst into tears today at the shops, because she was worried that someone would have a gun and start shooting

we talked about it in the car on the way home, apparently the boys at school were playing gun games, like boys do

i'm not sure how to handle it really, guns are scary!
we live in a rural area, chances are she will hear one going off sometime, plus grandad has one (for the rabbits )

she keeps asking if we have guns in this country, i don't want to lie to her, tried to reassure her that people can't just walk around carrying them, but it's not helping

if anyone can help with this, i would be really grateful

[balanomorey]

Aw - to your dd. Don't really know what to advise...just didn't want you to go unanswered.

I guess you'll just have to keep reassuring her - tell her catagorically that she won't ever be faced with anyone wielding a gun at her in a menacing way - let's face it, given where you live, I would imagine, please God, it's not going to happen, so it's not like you're being economical with the truth.

If you do hear gunshot around you, try and pass it off as cars backfiring or something or if you do want to be straight with her, tell her about it sometimes being 'necessary' to shoot animals, maybe on the pretence that they are really poorly sick and that they are being put to sleep as its the kindest thing to do....don't know if that's any help.

It's hard cos what can you say that's positive about a gun....at the end of the day, you just have to reassure that she'll be safe and not to worry about them as they will never harm her.

[LurkerOfTheUniverse]

thanks for that, i pretty much said all that to her

she'll be ok for a while and then gets worried again

trouble is, if it wasn't this it would be something else!