Boys in nursery schools should not be discouraged from playing with toy guns and other weapons, the government says.

[Iota]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7163741.stm

now there's a turn-up for the books

lol ellie.

I said ds would never have guns, but he was given a flintlock pistol as part of of pirate dressing up kit, and has also been given light sabres and bows and arrows... they are just that little bit far removed from RL that I can let them go.

Think I was always going to lose this argument, though, as dh enjoys sword fighting, archery and shooting...

franny, those look like very interesting books

but they are retailing for around £35 and £17 each on amazon, so any chance of a synopsis?

oh I can lend you the superhero one and I got the other one through my library

Aelita - roared with laughter at 'nibbled their snack-time bread into gun shapes'. We should have the 'most inventive gun created out of non-gun material' contest - I think yours would win, but I also had to admire the initiative of the small boy in our no-gun-policy playgroup who rolled his carefully crafted Mother's Day Card into a barrel shape and let rip.

ooh franny that would be most kind. Let me know re postage.

ps have just checked and neither of them are at local library. No free interlibrary loans for HErs round here, remember? .

I've lost count of the numbers of things my ds2 has turned into guns. He also has an amazing repertoire of different gun noises.

F&Z I too would be interested to hear a summary of those books.

Sprogger, I think I can see your parents' point in not letting your brother play with toy guns if real, working guns were very much in evidence in your family's day to day life. It could breed overconfidence in handling guns, so would be pose a particular safety threat.

For the last two summers, I have let ds2 take a bag of toy guns to local playgrounds. PC mother I am not! ds2 runs round finding other children - boys but sometimes girls - to play with. I am used to being surrounded by a groups of small children rifling through the gun bag. They all go off and play battle games together. The games tend to be trouble free and full of fantasy - tears and arguments are very rare.

When I first did this, I dreaded getting flack from some other parents (and would have stopped taking the bag out if this had been a common reaction) but this has only happened the once. The usual reaction from parents has been a thank you for letting ds2 share his toys.

I often wonder if my ds2 would be into army role play if he was faced with the reality of war in real life. I know he gets scared easily. I wonder if gun play still figures amongst children in countries at war?

(Male perspetive.) DS1 is not at this stage yet, and hopefully won't be for a while yet. However, I can't see that it's possible to win this battle for a majority of boys. (As always, there will be exceptions.)

For me, it's more important that DS1 learns how to react well to testosterone surges than what he plays with or how. Any rough or violent side to that needs to be managed carefully (I don't think that's going to happen within a nursery) but that's a different thing to saying that little boys shouldn't be allowed to have games where they are violent.

If it's not toy guns being fired without contact, I suspect it'll be swords where contact does happen, and if not this then even more inappropriately violent games/mimicry.

He's nearly 3 and since about a year ago, we have played rough games, where I "go to sleep" and he "wakes" me by falling (then) or jumping (now) on me - but with rules. (e.g. away from the head and groin.) Once the testosterone starts kicking in properly, I want to have some rules in place to manage it.

A nice byproduct of this is that I think he had a better idea about limits in treating DS2. I think he's more gentle because he gets to be rough in a controlled setting where he knows that the normal rules don't apply.

I think much of this debate might be informed by worries about ill-controlled aggression rather than guns. The american nutters are correct that guns don't kill people (though it's a damn sight easier to kill with one!) and I think the focus needs to be on who our kids are rather than what they play with.

Surely a child (be it boy or girl) playing with a gun sometimes is not a problem, DS has a light sabre, but no other type of weapons and I shan't be buying them for him.

If he decides to fashion a weapon of some sort out of his lego, then fair enough, his imagination has played a part in it.

But I don't personally think a child having a toybox full of guns/weapons is going to be particularly stimulating, that IMO will encourage them to play violent and agressive games.

So rather than encourage, I allow, DS just has to work out a way to make his own.

I would never buy a toy gun. They are toy versions of the real ones which hurt and kill children all over the world every day. chilling!

fairymum, how do you feel about children playing with magic wands and baby dolls? Do you also look at them with an adult and negative perspecive ie black magic or unwanted pregnancies?

My ds crashes his toy cars.....could this be a bad portent?

Like you PFG, we channel ds's testosterone surges carefully. He does Karate and is, outside the lesson, an exceptionally kind and gentle little boy.

We value the channeled aggression and he puts it into context.

His father, who has been an RAF fighter pilot...real Top Gun stuff, is also exceptionally kind and gentle

MB, do you think growing up with a brother who played 'goodies and baddies' with guns had anything to do with you ending up with a RL 'goodie' who has a rather impressive and expensive weapon, as it were?

(I mean the plane, not anything anatomical, btw!)

£20 million for the Tornado, but when he went multi engines it was £100 million.

We drive crap Fords LOL.

He is an amazing shot, but has no interest in guns at all, and only does his annual training.

I have noticed whenever there's a Formula One racing driver or a pilot or someone on Top Gear, they always drive a 'boring' car in everyday life. Because they don't have anything to prove, I guess, and get their thrills at work.

My BIL is ex-army but is only interested in shooting with a purpose - so he goes rabbitting occasionally with a mate, but isn't bothered about owning guns himself.

I'm with mb on this one.

Tbh, I don't buy guns and my boys don't have any toy guns - they do have Star Wars lightsabers though and a couple of sponge swords from Restormel Castle!

They are far more into reenacting car and train crashes with their toys though - should I be worried?

Mine are 3,5,6.

I also remember my youngest brother being obsessed with army and guns as a child - he was always making machine gun noises. He would probably run a mile from a fight nowadays!

My dh, the one who is into sword fighting, archery, falconry and shooting, has only ever been in two fights - both times trying to rescue women (and been beaten up himself as a result).

I grew up on army estates
The amount of testosterone knocking about those estates was pretty unpleasant tbh
All the boys were thugs - by today's standards - and so much of the play was aggressive, war-based, threatening.
I wonder what those boys are like now. I know my brother is threatening and probably violent (I tend not to see him).

No, Tigermoth. I think it is quite a far-fetched comparison too. I am not crazy about my DD playing with Barbies and would never buy her one of those either, but that's another discussion and for other reasons.

I think we all can see the difference between a boy who likes to dress up as a pirate and has a pistol and one who is dressed up in army-gear complete with mini machine-gun and bedroom full of tanks.

I was a bit taken aback recently to see my children waving sticks at each other and shouting "Aveda Kedavra!" Is this better than killing each other with toy guns (reasoning being that they are less likely acutally in real life kill anyone with a wand, presumably)?

I am glad that the govt has taken this stand, actually, for similar reasons to tigermoth.

wasn't it the fact that it was 4 (armed) against one (not armed) though?
No, of course it wasn't acceptable, and if one of the 4 had been my child, I would have told them not to gang up on one child younger than them!

they could equally well have been lined up with snowballs or water bombs, really.

No, of course not, Hatrick, I'd have been furious. Nasty little beggars.