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Behaviour/development

Talk to others about child development and behaviour stages here. You can find more information on our development calendar.

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Original poster

Does your 3 or 4 yr old have toy guns?

79 replies

Gobbledigook · 12/05/2005 11:45

Just wondering. Mine don't have any guns.

Was going to a friends yesterday afternoon and when we met at pre-school she asked me if I minded that her son had some new action men with guns that he wanted to show to my son that afternoon. I said it was her house and I wasn't going to say she couldn't have them out but that we didn't have any guns in our house.

There was no big deal made about it but I've been thinking about it since (oh, because we didn't go to her house in the end, we all went to the park because it was so nice) - her son is only 3.5 and I'm also just really surprised because the Mum is very, very religious and talks a lot about how she hates those Bratz dolls and how she only really wants him to watch CBeebies and keep him away from 'bad things' for as long as possible. I said I was surprised she had them (we know each other well so it was OK for me to say this iyswim! it was said nicely!) and she said 'oh yes but he spotted them in the shop and he wanted them' - this shocked me too really! I don't care what ds spots in the shops - I'm the mummy and I'll decide if he's having it!

Anyway, dh thought I was being silly about the gun thing and said all boys play with them - I know they do but so far we've avoided it as the boys are only 4, 2 and 8 months and I'd like to keep it that way for as long as I can.

OP posts:

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motherinferior · 12/05/2005 13:05

Elliott, is there a viable distinction in this one between 'maleness' and 'socially-defined masculinity' in terms a small child will understand, do you think?

I do tell my oldest child off for 'killing' things...

WideWebWitch · 12/05/2005 13:06

Elliott, we have 'violence is unacceptable' as a rule in our house and this applies to all of us, not a bad rule I think. So playing is ok, violence is not.

hercules · 12/05/2005 13:06

I didnt go out of my way to buy guns or swords for ds but he used to make his own and then somehow aquired a few. Personally, I cant see the problem. DH played with real guns as a child and that hasnt made him grow up as a delinquent. In fact he finds the whole thing quite amusing in this country as for him guns were an every day part of his childhood. He knew lots of people who have been shot but that hasnt changed his view.

Now, what I do object to is dolls and homemaking stuff for girls.....So does dh.
Although dd does have a doll
Mind you ds had a barbie

happymerryberries · 12/05/2005 13:10

All of this was crystalised for me when I used to help out with a plaqy group. Two little boys pick up some dolls to play with and I thought 'awww, have sweet'. They then started to used then as clubs!

To a degree the agression is in them. What we have to do is help them to channel it into a productive, positive use. making them feel ashamed about their imagination isn't to my mind helpful.

I'm not saying, don't let them beat the crap out of each other but we can't ignor what seems to be an in built trait.

Dh plaied with guns and a more gentle man I have yet to meet. He flys plans in the RAF, but that is quite another argumanet [grin} And no he has never killed anyone, hurt anyone or fired a gun at anytime other than his once a year check out...he is a great shot though

dot1 · 12/05/2005 13:13

Our ds1 is 3.5 and we've never bought him a gun, or even talk about them, but in the last 6 months or so he's started to use anything remotely gun or sword related to play fighting games!! All kinds of toys/household items get turned into guns (even "fire shooting guns") which is quite scary and absolutely nothing to do with us! A couple of weeks ago his grandparents bought him a couple of toy swords which he absolutely loves - so we're kind of resigned to a gun and sword loving boy...!

elliott · 12/05/2005 13:13

Don't really know MI - have lots of debates about this with my friends who have older kids. But I am conscious that there is a difference between strength and physicality, and violence/aggression. And also that society atm often seems to be 'down' on boys - and I want my boys to grow up feeling good about being male. Mind you at least I don't have to tie myself up in knots about whether to let Barbie in the house .
When ds1 'kills' something I sometimes try to talk about death and the fact that it is not a trivial thing - but really at this age I don't think they have a clue what it really means (he tends to think that dead things come back to life again!)

motherinferior · 12/05/2005 13:14

We have an 'anti-Barbie' which does seem to have some sort of weaponry.

Personally, I think it's far more down on girls.

happymerryberries · 12/05/2005 13:17

I think that part of the probelm with the way society views boys and their behaviour is that we have become an indoor society. When my bro was a kid he plaid outside, all day, every day. He ran off all that agression. We dare not do that now.

In the same way the hard physical jobs are gone in many industries.Many boys lack good role models (and dh was raised by a single mum soo I am not having a go at them , honest)

A 'ggod' child is being seen more and more as a placid quiet child, which isn't always healthy for boys

QueenEagle · 12/05/2005 13:23

Hate guns, overt aggression either physical or verbal and discourage it in my house. I have never bought a gun or sword for any of my boys and never will. Nor will I allow anyone else to. If they make a weapon out of a loo roll and sticky back plastic then I don't make too much fuss as they end up broken and forgotton about after an afternoon anyway. They play rough and tumble, run around in the garden, go to the park to play football and play footy at weekends so have ample opportunity to run off excess energy. Having said all that I don't actually mind them playing things like cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians; I did when I was a kid and loved it so seems nostalgic and innocent to let them to this iyswim.

elliott · 12/05/2005 13:33

MI maybe that's because you've got girls and I've got boys But I'm with you in the sense that its clear that women still have the bummer deal. But I'd say that ime there is less positivity about boy babies - and I'm sure some of my friends feel sorry for me having two of them - and there is a hell of a lot of 'boys will be boys' attitude around, and not in a positive sense.
hmm, I'm not making much sense there am I.

puddle · 12/05/2005 13:47

This is indeed a tricky one. My view is not entirely logical. I would never buy my ds a toy gun - I actually feel a bit ill seeing children with toy guns and I suppose it's because they look so realistic. Yes, my ds has made his own from lego and twigs and run around shouting bang bang but that all seems so much more innocent and rooted in fantasy play than when I see children toting replica Uzis.

But he loves anything to do with knights and Peter Pan - his Knight costume has a sword, Peter Pan costume comes with a dagger. He loves to pretend fight - although if the sword is used to actually hit anyone away in the cupboard it goes.

This is where I feel uneasy - if I asked him he probably wouldn't say fighting is bad or wrong, if you were fighting a baddie. He knows 'hitting' is wrong but he associates fighting with playing knights and superheroes. I think it does give him confusing messages although I do agree that learning and boundaries is an important aspect of children's wrestling-type play.

I totally agree with everyone who says that there is less positivity about maleness whether it's being loud and shouty in the playground or the rough and tumble games some boys love. I have a ds and a dd by the way so see both sides of the Barbie/ action man conundrum.

flum · 12/05/2005 13:48

I don't have a boy. But I have two air rifles and an air pistol and I do target practice in the garden. So I guess I would allow toy guns.

I would imagine most of the adult males I know played with toy guns as a child but none (not many) are murderers or in the army.

I had a girls world but I am not a hairdresser.

The nuclear bomb toy is for kids!!!

happymerryberries · 12/05/2005 13:51

And what I can't belive is that the toy atom bomn was made in Japan!!! WTF?????

flum · 12/05/2005 13:52

Yeah it was from the Hiroshima Peach Museum! Its sposed to teach kids the utter destruction of a bomb. it is good.

flum · 12/05/2005 13:52

Peace Museum even

motherinferior · 12/05/2005 13:55

Flum,
I am having a total sense of humour failure here. That is sick, and not in a good way. Do you know...oh, soddit, I won't start, but FFS would you play with a toy gas chamber?

Elliott, I do know what you mean. Sort of. In a very grudging way. Really I do.

happymerryberries · 12/05/2005 13:57

MI, I'm with you on this one. And I'm not anti toy guns but this is just plain sick. What next, electric chairs from the anti capital punishment lobby? Crucifiction kids from the bible belt?

flum · 12/05/2005 14:02

why is it worse than a gun. just because it kills more people?

flum · 12/05/2005 14:04

from here i think www.pcf.city.hiroshima.jp

hercules · 12/05/2005 14:05

Have to say a toy nuclear bomb is very odd. I can see the point of it in the appropriate circumstances ie as a teaching aid used very carefully.

motherinferior · 12/05/2005 14:05

Because it kills more people; because it maims, poisons, and destroys more people; because its damage continues for decades; because the nuclear bomb is acknowledged to be so poisonously evil that even the states that have developed one are expected to sign up to an international treaty aimed ultimately at disarming (ha!; because even testing them poisons the planet...

flum · 12/05/2005 14:08

Your kids won't be getting one this Xmas then MI?

happymerryberries · 12/05/2005 14:09

This one is too far away from the topic thread to go into IMHO.

But it is a weapon of mass destruction that has no other possible peaceful use. It cannot be used to hunt for food or for sport. It's only use is to incinerate and irradiate. To leave people walking round with their burnt flesh pealing off their bodies.

Now, we can discuss the right and wrongs of its use on another thread. But just as I draw the line at letting my children play concentration camp guards, or gang raping Tutsis, I think that our children deserve to to protected from the baser insincts of the human race. Time enough for them to understand that when they are old enough to read their history.

There is a world of a difference beween pointing a finger and shouting 'bang' at an imaginary monster and recreacting an event that evapotated thousands of people, and caused the guts of ohers to erupt out of their bodies as their insides boiled.

Just call me an old softie.

flum · 12/05/2005 14:11

can't find it on the website anyway. maybe they don't do them anymore.

LunarSea · 12/05/2005 16:05

We don't have guns, but ds has recently acquired the kalashnikov of the water pistol world! Am pretty sure he just views it as fun method for getting wet, rather than as a "gun", though.

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