Stick wielding 3.5yr old!

[ladypop]

Our 3.5yr old DS has recently starting turning anything into a weapon! He even pointed the inner bit of a toilet roll and a emery board at me the other day and made 'combat' noises!
I think it is the room he has moved to at nursery and the slightly older boys that are influencing his behaviour but I also know that he is a boy and this is pretty normal. Problem is, he doesn't seem to know the difference between pretend and real life. He can be quite fiery and aggressive towards other children (even though he can also be the sweetest and most sensitive boy in the room).
I'm not sure whether we should be really disciplining him to not be doing this or just accepting that this is something boys do and is a normal developmental phase? We have put a ban on DVDs/programmes that show this kind of behaviour so as not to encourage it. Any other advice/experiences please!?

Hello, sorry I won't be much help as have a DD but I think this is fairly normal. It certainly was with my brother who is is six years younger than me. We had a friend round who teaches physics in an all boys school on Sunday. He was lamenting the fact that he had given metre long sticks to his year 10 class for an experiment and they had turned the lesson into a war zone and the metre rulers into weapons. My DH said, to be fair, even now if someone gave him a metre long ruler he'd be tempted to turn it into a stick for fighting with . He's 30!

But, I guess that doesn't help in terms of your disciplining at the moment. But at that age it's hard to tell real life from pretend anyway, it might improve as his awareness grows. I hope someone more helpful will be along soon.

I would ignore. DS (3.11) randomly started shotting us with a bicycle pump a month or so ago. He has no older siblings, doesn't have "war" toys, guns, action man etc at all so we were a bit baffled. He was using very specific language (I'll shoot you with my pistol) which made us think he'd heard it from someone else.

It was a passing phase though and he doesn't do it now.

I would have a quiet chat to nursery though as they generally don't allow gun play at nursery - stop children using spoons, dustpan brushes etc as guns, so it might be something for them to look out for. I get that older children in nursery might play with guns / know them from older siblings, but they shouldn't have the chance at nursery to pass this on to their friends.