4 year old obsessed with guns

[sillymummy2]

My 4 year old son seems obsessed with guns. He uses his toy guns to shoot people and if he was out and about without his toys, he would use his fingers to pretend to shoot. My partner seems uncomfortable with his obsession but i think he'd grow out of it. I guess other kids become attached to other things like cars, dolls, dinosaurs etc... Is this normal?

I think it's normal as long as he knows it's pretend

TOTALLY normal! I always hated the idea of children playing with toy guns until I had DS who inexplicably fell in love with guns around the same age. I say inexplicably because he had no older brothers, his tv viewing was very selective - so god knows where he got the idea from. It was like a natural instinct. So I fought it for a while, but didn't want to make a big issue of it either, and he just kept fashioning guns out of sticks, cardboard, his fingers etc. so started him off with water pistols but then he'd see the more realistic toy guns in the shops and beg me for one.

I just gave in, in the end. But I made a rule - no pointing and shooting at people, (banned him from taking them outside where he would 'shoot' passers by ) and bought him the gun sets with targets so he had something to shoot at. I always refused to buy him a gun EVERY BLOODY TIME WE WENT TO POUNDLAND on the basis that he doesn't need that many.

I've spoken to other mums and they too have described their ds's being drawn to guns (as well as arrows, swords and other murder weapons ).

They don't really get the idea that real guns kill people. I can explain it to ds now who is 6.5 (who still loves a gun but not quite so obsessed) so he understands a bit more but again, I don't want to make a huge issue out of it.

You can try taking the gun off him for a day whenever he points or fires it as someone

A good grown up rule is "never point a gun at anyone unless you mean to kill them" but it might be a bit early to tell him that. Just tell him the first bit.