The moving castle tea room touches down for the 29th time

[UniS]

Welcome to the tea room. Open to those with one child and those with more and maybe some with none ( hi dave the trucker).

This time we are heading to the mists and mellow fruitfulness of Autumn in a moving castle with a mind of its own. The roaring fire is maintained by magic and Mellors the gardener handles wine and spirits along with massage duties.

The first rule of the tea room is this
No fisticuffs.
The second is this
Put the kettle on for and help yourself to a

Before school he had the aggressive play already though, but he would play things like wildebeest crossing the Mara river (i.e. getting savaged by crocs), or allosaurus attacking a triceratops etc. So by no means was he playing out peaceful scenes but that didn't bother me, but people killing other people does bother me. I know small boys make guns out of anything and everything!

You are right that of course tv and other media have a huge effect for good or bad on what children know about and the ideas they encounter.

I think what a lot of these dilemmas come down to is whether one prefers one's child not to know about things (and without wishing to trivialise it I would be very happy for Girl not to know about Barbie) or whether one feels comfortable explaining what those things are and why one doesn't like or approve of them.

I guess so far without tv or school we have been happy for him not to know these things and now we no longer control the information he gets, which is a big change.

I don't yet feel comfortable with explaining why I don't like playing killing people (because this really happens in life, is a serious thing, and I don't like it being viewed as fun) because as of yet I think he thinks it is just a game, he doesn't know these things happen in real life and so my explaining it would let him know this type of stuff really happens, which I don't want yet. I like him living in this life is all happy bubble while he's so young. Also he is very very defiant, so if I told him I didn't like it he would only play it more, so I am choosing to say nothing at the mo. I only made a small comment, along the lines of 'that's not very nice'!

Evening!

DH and I were discussing boys playing guns and shooting whilst we were on holiday. Small Bean made friends with another boy who was a couple of years older and within about 10 mins they were 'shooting' each other with pretend guns. We were a bit but to him it was just a game that seemed like fun.

I agree with Maud though - you can't hide children away from some of these things but you can explain why you don't like/approve of it.

Wow, already! What about a barge with a woodburning stove, going quietly down french waterways?

I wonder, do British children play cowboys and indians the way kids at home did/do?

LD&M - will we all fit on a barge? I wouldn't like to find myself sharing with a bishop in speedos?!?

I do like the idea of visiting some chateaux on the way though and perhaps doing some wine tasting .

Mmmm, .

British children of my vast age did, Scout ::thinks fondly of her cowboy (not girl) outfit:: but that may be because there were lots of cowboys and Indians on tv and in children's books - think the Lone Ranger, the High Chaparral, Bonanza - at the time. I don't think Girl has ever played it, though.

I remember playing it but it not featuring (much?) on tv and/or movies.

(I've found a couple of stocking stuff/Father Christmas games for TS. Board game type games for toddlers that we can play together. Is it sad that I'm excited about the thought of getting them and playing actual board games with Toddler instead of just running cars all around?)

Bean - I think it is possible to keep children away from all knowledge of (say) terrorism - at least before they are at school and can read independently - but it wouldn't have worked for us.

re gun play- Before school boy was keen on playing pirates and waving swords and chopping peoples heads off ( and mending them back on with a pretend hammer) . Started school and briefly got the gun play bug, probably from boys with either older siblings or parents who are more liberal with the TV than we are. HOWEVER - at about this time there was a fatal shooting incident in a nearby village and in the 10 months since there has been another killed by own gun incident in our village. That informed my choice to be rather zero tolerance about gun play with boy. We live in a rural area with a lot of shotguns floating about used for pest control and sport.. I don't tolerate him playing shooting people. He is learning that guns are not a game they can hurt and kill people. I expect when he is old enough Boy will learn to shoot safely and may earn pocket money beating for a shoot.

As far as I can tell the boys play with friends has largely moved on to superhero (zooming and rescuing) spy ( tracking and rescuing) and " mums and dads" ( mum goes to work, dad looks after baby monkey/kitten) . boy still likes waving a foam sword about either as a knight or pirate. He is 5.7 and in Year one. Watching the older boys in the playground at school ( I currently supervise Yr4+ mainly) there is not much gun play. A bit of lego ninja stuff, a lot of grabbing each other and capture games. A lot of football and tennis and chess.

Scout - The shopping list game is good

Simple board games are great, Scout!

LD&M, is that the Orchard Toys one?

I like playing Tummy Ache! (I think that's also an Orchard Toys one)

Toddler has this and we play "can you find...." with it (he's surprisingly good at picking a card and finding the matching picture even if he has more than one board in front of him). And he's getting this game for his birthday. Again, start with matches but with the hopes of getting him to add a few words to his vocabulary. But I've found some games on ELC (have a voucher and MrScout gets a discount through work as well as earning airmiles if he goes through some porthole thingy) that look fun, too.

(Admits to being worried about the gun-playing phase.)

Yep Scout. It's lovely.

I love the Orchard Toys games. I've put loads of them on his birthday/Christmas wishlist.

UniS - Did Boy listen to you when you put your foot down about guns? LittleDeer is likely to do the complete opposite of what I say so I'm hoping to just be low key about it (changing games by suggesting new things, not playing gun games with him, gently being disapproving) and that he'll grow out of it. Good to hear that kids seem to grow out of it!

I've looked at that one, LD&M, and it looks good. But do you think TS could play it? Is there a way to modify it for a two year old until he's a bit older/more vocal?

I think LittleDeer was three when he got it. On the list there are pictures of all the food each person needs. We kept the food cards face up and spread out so that we could just look for them easily. I would look and say 'oh my list says I need strawberries, where could the strawberries be?' I'd pretend to struggle to find the fruit, ds would then find the strawberries, I'd thank him and ask him to pop them into my trolley for me. And so on.

Ohh, Tummy Ache looks fun, too. So many good games and toys for a boy who's really starting to understand toys, games, etc.

Sounds like what we do with the Red Dog, Blue Dog game. So yes, we could modify for it a tiddler toddler.