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?

[eltsihT]

I grew up in the 1980’s in Scotland my parents are Northern Irish. Guns were not allowed in our houses as my parents had lost too many friends to guns etc.

We were encouraged to use sticks as swords rather than guns and mum and dad explained to us why they didn’t like them. We were allowed water pistols as we got older but dad always encouraged the paddling pool and hose pipe/ buckets.

I now have 2 boys and one of them is very into toy guns I feel uncomfortable with due to my upbringing. But my husband doesn’t really see the problem. My sons know my side of the family don’t like them and play gun games, where as my husbands does.

We muddle through.

Good luck with whatever you choose

[Strugglingtodomybest]

It depends on the child too I think. My brother was never interested in guns, it was all about the cars for him. So my mum wouldn't have had a problem banning guns from him. But I remember her best friend did ban guns and her son loved them, so much that he joined the army. He didn't stay long though, I think the gun fascination wore off fast!

I have to say, we've had more problems with swords. It didn't matter how many times I said, no contact, they always ended up hurting each other.

[CustardyCreams]

Nope! Bring on the guns! I played with some wonderful replica cowboy guns as a child, and spent a lot of time dressed in my pretend chaps and a fringed waistcoat and cowboy hat.

I graduated to a space gun aged around 7, that made some fantastic and extraordinarily loud noises and was extremely popular with all my friends during play dates.

Needless to say, I’m not violent now, and nor is my older brother.

Don’t understand why playing with guns is an issue at all.

[Mrsemcgregor]

I neither promoted or banned gun/weapon play with my 2 DS and it’s never been an issue.

I can’t recall buying any realistic looking guns but there have definitely been “cowboy” play sets in the house, the cheap sort won at fairs. Those are mimicking real guns in colour and shape (kind of) but I don’t think they would actually fool anyone.

I have brought them Nerf as a panic Xmas present when the pile didn’t look big enough, but they’ve never been a favourite toy.

I can count on two hands how many times I’ve witnessed them playing “gun games”. I don’t know whether that’s because they just aren’t fussed or if it’s because I’ve not made guns some forbidden game that entices them more?

Either way it’s not been a conscious effort And I wouldn’t mind if they loved imaginary gun battles. I grew up with 4 brothers and toy guns were very popular then. They had day long war games around the estate and none of them have grown up to be violent or anything other than upstanding lovely men. Although one is an officer in the RAF!

[drspouse]

I am not worried my two will grow up to be serial killers if they play with guns.
I am worried they may come across a gun and think they can "play" with it.
Not too likely in the UK, though there are still teenagers who keep guns for friends and those teenagers still have younger siblings. More likely where we have family overseas.
If I saw them using knives or knife like toys in a similar way it would be the same. Funnily enough children's programmes rarely show stabbings.
Children don't understand death or safety. When they are old enough to understand these fully, they will be old enough to play at death.

[Lelophants]

@drspouse tbf I dont think anyone expects their kids to grow up to be serial killers 😂

[StepAwayFromTheEcclesCakes]

Mine never had them and rarely made them from lego or whatever, we also didn't buy the wrestling toys that were popular in those days. Water pistols that looked like big pump things we allowed but not the ones that actually looked like a pistol. It never bothered them, they just accepted that we didn't like violent toys, we never made a big thing of it and i am sure they played with other peoples we just didn't want them in our house.