does your five year old do a lot of gun and shooting baddies games?

[geraldinetheluckygoat]

because mine does and always has loved to play at being a hero protecting everyone from the baddies, etc. We havent really helped the situation I guess by letting him him watch the clone wars cartoon which he adores, and starwars.
anyway, at preschool they were always very supportive and followed his interests and always told me not to worry too much about it as it would pass.
this term hes started reception and the teacher had a word with me today to say that hes "very obsessed with baddies and shooting games" and can we steer him away from that as she thinks its stopping him joining in with the other kids. Im assuming she means at playtime and free play time. I didnt ask wether it was interfering with the lessons, but i didnt get the impression it was (and of course if it was, she should tell him to stop!). I did ask if it was causing a problem at all for the other kids or anythnig, ans she said it wasnt, just that he wasnt joining in with the other's games. I know my ds is very into his own games and imagine if the others are not playing something hes particularly interested in he might just go off into his own game and play that, but I dont have any concerns re. his social skills, he makes freinds and plays really well when he wants to. I kind of think if hes happy to play his own games, then Im happy for him to do that, he does quite like his own space. I also wonder wether its been his way of dealing with the change of starting big school, playing a bit obsessively a game he loves.

ANYWAY sorry to rant, Im just wondering how normal this is, do other peoples kids get really into gun play nad baddies, etc? Is it something to be concerned about? Im thinking I should stop letting him watch starwars, etc., do you think this would be the right thing to do? Im really regretting letting him watch them at all now! arrgghh, its so horrible when the teacher has to "have a little word", Ive never experienced it before, I felt terrible!

oh and the otehr thing she wanted to have a word about was that he got very upset when he grazed his finger and wouldnt let them look or put a plaster on - I explained to her that he had a few traumatic medical experiences last year (hernia op, with painful complications then he had to have a few injections/ blood taken and had to be held down). But she said "is this massive over reaction normal for him?" and I could tell she thought he was a bit of a drama queen. which he is. Hes only five!

yes,all mine have...even one of my dd's!

and at age 7 my ds still plays these type of games

and they get to take a toy in on wednesdays to show the rest of the class....and he really desperately wants to take his power ranger in......shall I force him to take in something very sensible and peaceful like his globe??

ds1 does a little bit, but only due to the influence of his friends I think
he certainly doesn't watch anything violent or anything with guns or fighting on television, so i assume he has picked it up from them

for a while he was quite into killing people and shooting baddies, but interestingly he has a new best friend at school now, and a girl has joined their circle too and there hasn't been any gun/fighting talk for a while

Yes he does obsessed with guns,swords, dinosaurs, also has an obsession with death the worse the better ive tried to steer him away but he likes what he likes.Thats part of his personalty and cannot change it. In fact when ds teacher did a home visit she surveyed all the boys in the class as they needed to buy new toys dinosaurs, ben 10 and power rangers was the most popular!

Hmm, will come back to this and read properly later, but I got the "Your son has made a model today, but it is NOT a gun, is it, [name]" line from his teacher just the other day. It clearly was intended to be a gun, but we had to make a little scene in saying that it was in fact a water sprayer or leaf blower....

So, in short, mine does. He is 5.5 and utterly obsessed with guns, fighter planes, warships, cannons.... anything that shoots something.

thanks for the replies everyone. I knew mine couldn't be the ONLY one, but needed to hear it!!

So should I STILL let him take in the power ranger (It doesnt have guns, but does have some sort of swords), hes been asking since last week every day if todays the day he can take it...will this look like im not heeding the advice to "steer him away"?

And would you ban clone wars and anything similar?

trouble is hes been really into playing on his leapster game thing, as we got him the clone wars reading and maths games. Its quite blasty and shooty too. I was follwing his interests!! I even asked the nursery teacher what she thought of it and she thought it was an excellent Idea.... I dont want to stop him doing that as he loves it and also it has really helped him to learn his phonics and numbers...

OP imo your ds sounds like a regular little boy, this world has gone mad fgs, children not allowed to express themselves because its not in line with government dictates of what is normal behaviour and what games they should be doing, wrapping kids in cotton wool. The teacher obviously lacks the skills to deal with it in an appropriate way imo.

Poor you Ger,
Mine is a lunatic for his Red ranger.What harm is it doing?Let him bring it.

About the whole over-reaction to the blood thing,'little word'(shivers down spine)etc,don't pay any heed.This teacher is living in Space (with the Clone wars!)if she thinks 5year olds don't react to the sight of blood.

thanks for the kind replies, I will let him take his power ranger. I might cut down on the clone wars viewing, but i'm not going to totally ban it as he loves to cuddle up with his dad and ds2 to watch it on a weekend after dinner. I think I will just leave it and see if it's mentioned again.

Just want to add my son to the list! DS2 is 4 and obsessed with Star Wars and all fighting games. He carries his sword, light sabre or gun everywhere - to swimming, to bed etc. I see a lot of parents (i.e. mums) sneering but it's just him. DS1 isn't vaguely interested and has had exactly the same exposure to TV, books etc.

ah, spaceforthree, my ds also is a fan of lightsabering up! Particularly when he was four, he went everywhere with a lightsabre on his belt!

I have a little girl, but was a real tomboy myself when i was a child, owned several plastic guns (given to me by relatives) and was very into the goodie baddie theme, Star Wars all the range then, He Man and loads of kids cartoons with goodies and baddies. Used to hang round with the boys playing Cowboys and Indians those were the days sigh. Couldent do that now all those loony bin teachers like the one in the op not all teachers though, would put a stop to that.

Another one here with a death-and -destruction obsessed 4.5 year old. Currently the obsession is DALEKs. He doesn't actually watch Dr Who- I know it's too scary for him-but has seen one episode with daleks and now all games revolve around the Daleks exterminating people, or sucking their brains out with their plunger weapon-thingy.

Actually, most of his games involve people/animals being 'zapped' and/or dying in various ways. Have done for a while. And before the DALEKs it was Transformers, then it was Power Rangers. Dinosaurs attacking each other as well. We also had a brief but very intense flirtation with sword-fighting and jousting after we all went to a medieval tournament at Cardiff Castle-so its not all TV-induced!

I'm not bothered, I think it's perfectly normal, and it's no different to little boys playing 'cowboys-and-indians' or with little lead soldiers years ago. It's just a phase, and will pass.
That said, I wouldn't feel comfortable with letting him have a realistic looking toy gun to play with. Although he has a sword.Not sure what that says about me!

Gosh let boys be boys fgs, nothing wrong with a bit of play fighting, goodies and baddies etc

My ds is exactly the same. We were playing at the park and we had to be space men transformers and run around shooting the aliens. After a bit I said we'd got to run the the transportation pod and fly to planet Aldi!!! which we did, whilst he leant out the window shooting aliens all the way. Then insisted on wearing the new swimming goggles i bought whilst on planet aldi all the way home, shooting at passersby out of the window! Boy did I get some strange looks!!!

Sandy Toksyvik said after having a boy following 2 girls that they had decided they weren't going to give him guns and cars and gender differential toys and expose him to the same stuff as his sisters....and that by 18months old he was shooting at her with a cardboard toilet roll tube.

Give it up; it's what they do.

Your DS sounds completely normal.

My DS (same age as yours) is into everything Star Wars, super heroes, dinosaurs, gruesome deaths, destroying castles, etc. He and his friends regularly play Star Wars or Power Ranger games in the playground.

Don't know what planet your teacher's been on TBH. Surely loads of boys she teaches are like this? Unless she does something spookily hypnotic to most of them.

All boys go through this stage, they tried to stop it at pre-school (pre EYFS) and they still kept on doing it with bits of bark from the playground or just using their fingers.
As long as they are not actualy punching each other, then it does not mean they are going to grow into thugs.

I even remember playing games like this when I was small, but then I was a bit of a Tomboy and even now I would love to do some paintbaling but no one else wants to come, but then most of my mates are in their 40s

Totally normal, and if you're worried about your DS taking a power ranger to school, don't be. My son won a AK47 Assault Rifle at an Open Garden tombola, and was desperate to take it to nursery (he is 4.5). The whole situation was so bizarre that I couldn't possibly refuse, and the teachers took it with good grace, no negative comments at all. I did have to have a word with him though about what a real gun would do, before he pretended to shoot too many of his fellow classmates......

I think it depends whether he plays these games to the exclusion of all else. If he does, I would cut back on the star wars films and try to get him to watch something else - I don;t thik it's a good idea to do anything all the time. And if he's not playing with other children because he only wants to play his games he's not learning about co-operation and give and take - which is the main thing they need to learn about in Reception.

This doesn;'t help at all, but I don't think Star Wars is suitable for 5 year olds!

Well some children are quite solitary really and prefer their own company, I was and I am afraid my dd 3.2 might go down that route as she likes mostly playing on her own, though she does like the company of other children from time to time and will try and engage them. I am now quite a social person who has friends and likes interacting with different people. Let boys be boys.

I have two boys. One of our house rules is "No shooting at the table"!

My general rule is "don't shoot people until you know that they are happy to play the game too". Ds2 (2.4) has recently started wandering up to other toddlers and shooting at them with his fingers. Some of them look a bit worried but most of them just shoot back.

Ds1 (5) does tend to be a bit more fighty when he's been watching starwars/ben10/powerrangers. We've discovered ScoobyDoo recently - that's better because he always plays the rescuer and not the baddy. And then there is Tom and Jerry, my goodness that's violent. Never noticed as a kid!

Dd (8) has been getting them to play Vets, and Puppies, and Dinosaur Training Camp, too. Those are good - the badly behaved small dinos have to learn how to behave .

gosh came back and saw all these messages, thanks everyone. Well, the next day the other reception teacher said they had all had a lovely time playing spaceships and asteroid attacks in the playground, and on friday I was in the preschool playground with ds2 at playgroup and could see ds1 running races and stuff on the field with friends. Not sure really what the first teacher was on about, I think she probably did think he was playing to the exclusion of others, but this isnt the norm for him ALL the time, I suspect hes just been like that when hes felt overwhelmed with starting at new school, hes only been there since beginning of term.

For my part I have not put anything shooty on the telly, they havejust watched cbeebies....and monsterinc...cue concerns about screaming and monster roleplay

I feel less bothered by it now Ive read about all your sons and daughters who are into this too. Hopefully they will all grow up to be good members of society....if not they can all go off and join the crips together!

I was going to post a new thread asking the same question and found this old thread (always search the old ones on MN first - there is so much wisdom there!). Can I ask you all if your kids turned out Ok? My nearly 5yo is in that phase and his teacher has said the same about it being too much, plus we're getting him assessed for ADHD/ASD, and it's all feeling very hard.