If you don't let your children play with toy guns...

[BoatingLife]

If you don't let your children play with toy guns, please can you talk about how this has worked out for you? E.g. how you have managed this, and navigated it as the children have got older? I feel quite unsure about my DS playing with toy guns. I am definitely not going to buy him any. (He's a baby just now). And I'm quite clear about conversations I can have with him about it, but not about how to manage within the context of other people's children, or when my DC have play dates etc and see others with toy guns, or when he is gifted toy guns...

I know there'll be some who think this approach is wrong and may say "let children be children", "they are just toys", "don't be so woke / namby pamby / liberal" etc etc. But if you are along the same line of thought as I am, and in your gut instinct as a parent it feels wrong, what do you do about it?

My own ds has never received toy/replica guns as a gift, it's not a popular choice anymore (Nerf guns aside but they don't look like a real gun). He still managed to pick up any object close to hand and make shooting noises!

I steered any gun games, at home, towards the gun being a "freeze ray" instead of bang bang you're dead type of game but tbh if he had friends over I would leave them to it to play however they liked. Maybe it's my ds's personality by he's just not really into that kind of game.

It might not be as big an issue as you think.

It's never been an issue. Guns don't run on wheels and my boys only ever cared about things on wheels.

I cant understand why anyone thinks its ok for kids to play with guns in the UK. Ive never had guns as toys in any way and mine at nearly 7 is starting to get into lightsabers but has never had an interest in guns, it a completely inappropriate toy here. I lived in South Africa where I saw a very different side to things and see that its good for the South African kids to have guns as a play thing - at 12 they were building their own and protecting their families from deadly snakes - its very different there even some of our teachers wore guns - to get gun skills for protection makes sense - in the UK its just weird - would people give their kids here knives to play with in an agressive way? or any weapon. Makes no sense to me if you want a peaceful culture. Mine certainly dont miss out or make a beeline for them at others houses and they go to school (schools dont think its ok for gun play do they!) and have plenty of friends who probably have weapon toys. I guess its how you teach them to play with them, with lightsabers your a Jedi doing good for the Universe. Ive never had a problem with being clear on gun play - killing people is just not something to play, theres plenty of games that dont involve guns its a non brainer to me.

agree with above - you may never have to worry about it, I dont think gun play goes on that much especially if you dont promote it or make a big deal about it just have your clear boundaries if it does come up,and directing it to a freeze ray is a good idea if it does!

My son has never had toy guns and it hasn't been a problem. He was gifted a nerf gun once which was just politely re-gifted as I have a problem with polystyrene. He plays computer games and has played paintball at a party but didn't really enjoy it.

It isn't compulsory.

I genuinely mean this in a nice way - you can plan whatever you like when your kids are babies, but it's a shock to the system when you realise you can't actually monitor them 24/7 when they're older, and also that they don't necessarily agree with your POV with everything.

We played at being cowboys when I was younger - with proper metal pistol-style guns. I loved it, but it definitely didn't make me obsessed or even interested in real ones.

Also, there are very few places sell real-looking toy guns.

Finally, a pp asked what the end goal is with this blanket rule - I think that's worth thinking about. Where do you draw the line? Anything that shoots? Swords? Lightsabers?

Mine are all teens/adult now. I was never really against them having guns as I had them as a kid. But they were never interested so ended up not having them as young kids. They had water pistols, which always ended up in screaming when they got wet. So I ended up hiding them. And then got nerf guns that got ignored until they steampunked when they were bored. They've done rifle shooting with scouts plenty of times, but still not really interested outside of that.

But one of them was always fascinated by sword fighting on tv, so made swords out of whatever he had - he now does fencing as a sport.

My oldest is nearly 6. I'd say I was middle of the road on this - he has water pistols and I don't remove the guns from Playmobil figures etc, but he isn't allowed guns that you point at other people and pretend to kill them. Obviously he does this using sticks, fingers etc but I do try to discourage it. If it gets to a point where he is feeling left out by his friends I will rethink but at the moment it is fine.

I didn't want my eldest son to play with toy guns. He's now 8 and has 3 younger brothers and there are plenty of toy weapons around our house. Some gifts, some they 'made' themselves.

I still won't buy them toy guns but I don't ban them either. I think, as several previous posters have suggested, it might make them more obsessed if I forbid. So I allow them to play with them, but don't pay a lot of attention (whereas, usually if they build something out of lego or whatever I will take an interest if they want to show me).

I think they will probably outgrow it, as there are plenty of other things that they are interested in.

We just never bought him any. No one else did either, not sure why, as we (DH and I) had toy ‘cowboy’ guns, bows and arrows, cap guns etc when were children so it’s not as though our families were fundamentally opposed to them. That sort of pretend gun had fallen out of favour a bit I think.
Can’t remember if he ever asked. I don’t think so. When he was older he had Nerf guns, but there was a rule that you only shot targets and not each other.

I do remember a friend who had dc before me saying she had banned all guns but her DS still pretended to shoot his sister with a banana

I did not buy any toy guns / swords for my DSs, and neither did anyone else.
However, they made swords out of sticks, and guns out of saucepan handles (they tucked the pans under their arms).
I was also vary careful about the TV they watched, but it seems this kind of thing slips into some childrens programs. Obviously, I discouraged 'violent' play, but tried not to get too worked up about it.
They all grew up to be mature sensible adults.

I don't ban them but I won't buy them either. My elder two never played with them nor asked for them. Ds1 is now a teenager who debates the importance of strong gun laws.
Ds2 loves playing with swords but isn't really exposed to toy guns either.
But then I'm probably not the most usual demographic in that I home educate and we don't have a television. Though we do watch things on the iPad.

I'm only thinking about it since you asked, OP. It's just never come up. It's never been like an elephant in the room or an awkward issue to navigate, they always just had other toys. They've never pleaded with me to have a gun and if they did I'd have just said/would just say (different ages) 'no'.

I had a gun ban with DS1. When he was 5/6 I found a massive stash of them hidden under the sofa and gave up.

We tried that rule, then got nerf guns as a present and were over at their granny's house and their uncle gave them a gun. To be honest they grew out of them quite quickly and they were never a big deal

I'm bringing my DDs up on Army camps. They see real guns a lot. They had armed guards outside one of their schools. So guns are what the good guys have. They know now they are what the bad guys have as well, but when rather small, there was a lot of role play of soldiers at nursery etc as that was what they saw.
They are 7&9 now. They know guns are not toys. They have Nerf... But it's more target shooting. They know that Red Flag means danger and stay away. Water pistols are the only thing they shoot at people.

I think making things forbidden fruit causes more problems in the long run... But it doesn't mean it has to be encouraged.

I don't think many children play with guns that look like guns. I have two boys, I never bought them any kind of guns (apart from water pistols) or suggested them as presents. They have never been bought any guns that look like guns, but they started to be bought Nerf guns for birthdays from friends from the age of about five or six, we have had loads of them in various different sizes. They seem to be a popular present. I did buy them light sabers because they loved Star Wars, wooden swords/ shields when we visited castles and archery sets, and I'm not sure how different these are to guns really.

All my ds's had toy guns. Ds 18 is a combat engineer now with a real gun...
Dc play with cars and play mock crashes but it doesn't encourage them to go joy riding ime..

My DH shoots and has about 9 shotguns and rifles locked in a gun cabinet (all licenced obvs). So it was pretty pointless telling any of my DSs not to shoot and not to play with toy guns. However they have been out with DH when little and were taught about gun safety and etiquette.

Now they are late teens and not a bit interested in guns of any sort apart from on Xbox and even that's waning now in favour of the gym and girls.

I dare say Michael Ryan played with toy guns as a kid but I doubt that made him want to commit the massacre that he did.

Funnily enough water pistols were the only guns I banned. They are not fun for anyone other than the person doing the firing and caused a lot of tears back in the day.

I tried that....DS bit gun shapes out of toast!
I eventually gave in and let him have nerf guns which he quickly got bored with and is showing no homicidal tendency's, preferring sports and music to guns these days.

Don't spend too much time worry about this, it all passes.

I've never have bought my son's toy guns and I've asked family not to buy them. I don't let them play or watch anything violent they are little boys. But I don't know if this is just in boys or what but they will find and create literally anything and make a gun sticks/toilet rolls, Legos. Although I hear the fake shootings they say it's a ice/slime/lazer blaster mummy. So I just let them get on with it. If they start going over the top or want to watch/play things that are too violent for their age I would definitely put the breaks on it.

I didn’t have any in our house - friends and family knew I didn’t want them and it was never an issue. I never stopped him playing or pretending but I would never join in and play a ‘shooting’ type game and he knows I ‘don’t find it fun to pretend to hurt other people’. Both of mine quite happy with that and could understand - they are now 10 and 6 and not really bothered ever about playing guns.

I was one of those parents too. No guns, no violet toys etc.

You'll find they will just use stick, brooms, literally anything they can find instead.

I think its also about normalising this kind of stuff and whatever is normal in your household will be what they are used to etc, Ive literally never seen mine try to play with gun moves - I guess we dont watch much with guns in yet- we mostly watch cebebbies & CBBC and i cant see that having guns in? Starting to come in with star wars I guess. Its like you are what you eat, you are also what you watch, and what you play. Mine plays minecraft which has weapons like axes etc but thats never come into real life play as we just have naturally never played killing as a family (why would anyone think killing is a game I dont know! ) If mine made a gun hand and pointed it at someone that would be a big no no with consequences, its horrible. I guess its about having a line your child knows you dont cross without making a big deal out of it - use distraction or make it on the family rules. Living in South Africa meant they had lots of friends with guns but that was a different culture and a different world of play,and its totally ok to explain to a child that our household has a different rule to their friends household, like with lots of things, so if mine were to play guns at a friends house I would just say, yes everyone does things differently and not make a big deal but just be clear its not at home. People will always judge about something but have a little thing you say that stops them in their tracks/ makes it clear its non negotiable and you believe in yourself then its easy. 'Yeh Im a pacifist', or 'yeh you know guns kill right', or something. A freeze ray is a good idea. And when they are older you can really go into the ethics of stuff - such as when they notice Princess Leias blaster, and so they are old enough to chat about whether its ok to use violence for good etc and to go into the whole 'Han shot first' concept. You can use such conversations for good from an angle where guns are a concept they notice rather than a normalised play thing when they are little?