Guns / war related toys - what are your thoughts and rules?

[Astrophe]

my DS had a birthday party at the weekend and was given (amongst other, lovely things) an army set - little figurines etc, including guns, grenades, bayonettes etc. Its not the sort of theing we'd ever buy him 0 indeed, we don't buy and gun or war related toys at all. If DS pretends he has a gun, makes a gun from lego, or pretends to shoot with a water gun (which he does have), we don't make an issue of it, although its not really what he is 'into'.

Anyway, I think we'll let him have this toy for a few weeks, let him thank the child who gave it to him (a child from school who we don;t really know) and then quietly move the toy on in a little while.

But it got me wondering, what rules and thoughts do other parents have? I haven't discussed it with friends, but haven;t noticed a lot of gun play amongst friends' children either...

ds is only four but I don't like guns and army stuff at all. if he needs to pretend to be a cowboy or soldier, he can build something with lego or use a stick. dh thinks it is not a big deal, but I would bin it tbh.

Yeah ds only 3 but we try to avoid it, not make a big deal of it. He likes to sword fight, which I guess comes from playing pirates. Seems to come from nursery, I know sone of the boys have older brothers. But what can you do anyway. And tbh I don't remember anyone "protecting" us from it when we were younger and we all turned out ok!!

You can't avoid it. We have soldiers, tanks, lego men with guns, swords, people being boomed up and heads falling off (which can all be fixed with 'sellytape'). DS1 is 4 and DS2 nearly 2. I used to try and avoid it all, but now, it's a case of whatever keeps them amused...

lol....not given it much thought.....they can play with what they like!

we are ex army and when we lived on the garrison the dc used to wave at their dad every morning! he was stood guarding the gate with a fully loaded gun!

funnily enough none of my 5 have expressed ANY interest in playing these games

water guns are designed to 'get' someone too....so why are they ok??? they usually end up with one child soaked and humiliated.

B52s - I disagree - you can avoid it, if you choose too, at least in your own home and when the children are small. You might choose not to (which I'm not taking issue with, BTW, am genuinely interested in what others do), but the modern fallacy that we don't have any control over what our kids do/eat/wear/play with etc gets my goat.

Ilovetifanny - water guns, yeah I can see your pint. We haven't really made a concious decision to allow water guns and not othwer things, its just that they (DD too) have been given a couple at parties and they haven't posed a problem - they use them to spray each other in summer, not as weapons per se, and so we have't given them much thought.