killing games - do you allow them?

[juicychops]

my ds is 4 and he includes 'killing' in some of his games. i try to persuade him not to and explain why but he still does it. and with his friends.

shall i just ignore it and let him get on with it?

This is a controversial one isn't it. When I was little I had little toy guns and things. I hasn't turned me into a murderer. I think it's best to let them get it out of their systems. Probably someone will disagree though.

I'd ignore if he does it to his friends, but tell him I don't want him to do it to me (or DH, siblings, grandparents, etc...). They really don't understand at this age that "killing" is something bad - as far as they are concerned in these games they just have to lie still for a couple of seconds, before they jump back up and "kill" someone else.

I spent large parts of my childhood jumping out of gateways at my friends with a cowboy gun. When we got a bit older, we all grew out of it, and none of us turned into a serial killer.