Should I let my 3 year old play with "violent/scary" cousin?

[MelissaC999]

Hi,
Advice please.
My 4 year old niece went to play in her bedroom with my 3 year old son. They came out a few minutes later and my son said to me "There are monsters in her room". I said there are no such things as monsters but if there was they would be friendly. My niece then said, "No, they want to kill us". I thought this was a strange thing to say and quickly said this would never happen and reassured my son who looked worried.
Then my sister said that she found my niece at a play date at a friends house with another little girl (all 3 of them 4 years old) playing with a hair dressers doll. They were snipping at the dolls mouth & ears saying "Cut your mouth off. Snip snip snip" and saying they wanted to cut the dolls lips off and ears off as the doll had been naughty.
I don't know if this is "normal" behaviour?
Should I be worried about letting my son play alone with my niece?
Thanks in advance.

I wouldn't be keen on it, no. Unfortunately these days I suppose some children are exposed to violent or unpleasant things via TV or other 'screens', which in years gone by would have been X-rated or for 'over 18s'.

When our DS was young, he and a slightly younger friend used to play in our garden, saying they would catch a robber and put him in jail. But that was just a game, and it was nearly thirty years ago, so it didn't do any harm.

Maybe what you quote is equally innocent, but I wouldn't want it.

They are cousins, of course you shouldn't keep them apart. Just supervise their play and put her right over any strange things she may come out with.

This is normal behaviour. Your being precious. He's always going to be exposed to comments like these and far worse, you won't be able to shield him. You won't ever be able to change other childrens behaviour but you can always reassure him these said things are nonsense, don't exist, however you want to explain.

I wouldn't however point fingers at other kids because there will come a time when your son will be the one upsetting someone and thus upsetting the parent more than the other child.

4 year olds have vivid and often macabre imaginations (mine does anyway), and are learning how effective words can be. I'd supervise them a bit closer for a while, and you could ask her not to say scary things to your ds as he's a bit younger.

My dd is younger at not quite 3, and I consider her a kind, gentle person, but she comes out with stories about running away from scary monsters trying to eat us, what bits of us they will eat, etc, all the time. I think she gets it from fairy stories, which are often quite scary and brutal, IMHO (her favourite is Little Red Riding a Hood). But she seems to enjoy this play, it doesn't seem to genuinely frighten her.
I agree the snipping the dolls lips off thing sounds really horrific, but I think it's within the realm of what children might come up with just based on fairy stories etc.