Wet liberal worrying about her babies playing with guns...

[ScummyMummy]

Oh woe is me. My boys are obsessed with guns at the moment and I'm feeling quite uncomfortable with this. They don't actually have any guns but pretend away with anything they pick up. I'm not sure how to respond to the frequent choruses of "Watch out Mummy, I gotta gun." I really don't want them to like guns... but they do and they're two so what do I do?

I have to admit I hate the thought of my ds with guns, and he has none, though he is only three.

His cousin, who is 4 and a half, has lots and comes up to you and tells you that you are dead, I really hate it and I have tried whenever possible to hide them away when we go there to play.

I think this is the problem, you can stop them having them personally but its their friends who can cause the problems.

The way I intend to try and get round it is to say that he can play with his cousins, but we don't need them at home. Anyway they will always pretend with something else even if they don't have the real thing. My sister and I made laser guns from Lego! So really I can't say anything, can I!!

We tell our 4 yo son not to shoot at people even though his guns are pretend, as he always points out. Also that it's unacceptable to make people dead, even though it's pretend. We do let him do the Buzz Lightyear laser move, though, and will shoot back using the same move. When they come out with armband lasers I'll be a bit stricter on that, I think.

When he's playing with toy guns, we go over the safety rules of real guns, ie what to do if he ever sees one. Our rules are:

1. do not touch it
2. do not let anyone else touch it
3. go get an adult immediately without touching the gun and, soon to be added because he's older,
4. if no adult is immediately available call the police and tell them he has found a gun (without touching it)

We won't have a gun in the house with children, but I want him to know what to do if he does come across one somewhere else.

My aunt had a son and didn't allow him to have any toy guns. He would always find a gun shaped twig and pretend. He's now in one of the state bureaus of investigation (like the FBI, but on a state level -- this is in the US) and is constantly armed. Not cause and effect, of course, just amusing.

LOL ScummyMummy, my son of roughly the same age picked up a (wooden, of course) brick the other day and shot me dead, with sound effects. I have no solutions whatsoever, just a furtive sense of relief that it's not just me that finds this really depressing.
If they mix with other kids, I suppose they are going to pick up on the fun of guns, Fairy is right.
Interestingly, it was dh who really wigged out on the spot, thereby convincing our son that shouting bang bang was a great way to get his father's undivided attention. When ds is not shooting us he is ransacking my make-up bag, so I am chanting "just a phase" under my breath.

I don't think you're a wet liberal at all! I dislike guns and have refused to let me ds have any. While it's my money I will lay down the law on this one. However, the minute we get to his friends house he goes for the toy guns and I don't stop him. I have explained that guns are dangerous weapons that kill people and therefore I don't think they are appropriate as toys. Only my opinion!

my not me ds! typo.

We never let them have guns which look like guns -but they make their own out of lego and have had water pistols. Headed straight for them at other people's houses, though. They did have swords which can actually give a nasty clout in a way that toy guns don't - perhaps it's a useful reminder that these things are designed to hurt?

I, too, wondered whether I was the only one to have a problem with this. I have two boys and I have so far avoided them and no one has given one as a present either (I would throw it away if they did) However, the other day, my eldest (3) was talking to an older boy who was saying he had a gun. My son didn't know what he meant and so was talking about a 'glun'! But I do wonder how long it will be before he is wanting them himself.

'Don't react and try to distract' is my imperfect way of going about this. I have a friend who managed to ensure her daugher didn't even know the word 'gun' until she went to school. I was so in awe of that accomplishment.

The first time round, when my oldest was an only child, it was easy to avoid having guns in the house. But once he hit school, he began to build up an arsenal or guns and swords. It wasn't that I suddenly changed tack, but toy guns are so very easy for school children to come across.

And my son asked 'why can I have a huge water pistol when I can't have a toy gun? Very fine line between the two. Have you seen the size of water blasters!!

My son bought guns with pocket money when my back was turned at the school fete, won them at the fair, got them in swaps with friends - the ways of acquiring them were many and devious. He was never gun mad, but he sensed my antipathy towards them, which of course made them more attractive.

When I had son number two, five years later, he was born into a house equipped with toy guns, not to mention huge water blasters, light sabres and swords. At just under two and a half, he isn't yet playing with them of his own accord. He's far more interested in cars at the moment, but sometimes he brandishes one in a playfight with my older son.

Because I now know the inevitability of him getting toy guns - not to mention making them out of twigs and bricks, I am much more tolerant of them. I just try to keep my reaction minimal, never join in gun play, and never ever pretend I've been shot dead. I don't want him to equate guns with power, and I feel very, very uncomfortable with the idea of him shooting mummy. As soon as he loses interest in the gun, I put it out of reach, and try to make sure that no guns are mixed in with his toys.

One thing to consider with gun play: much better to play at shooting, than to actually hit or bite another, IMO.

Also, I wonder if the surge in testosterone levels that boys have around the age of four, according to Steve Biddulph in 'Raising Boys' has anything to do with their interest in guns. I'd bet my bottom dollar it is! So is gun play a relatively harmless expression of their male side, however much we as peace-loving, PC mothers hate to see the little monsters ratting around?

ScrummyMummy my 2+ year old points his little finger and makes a kind of shooting noise. I have no idea where this comes from as neither my childminder or I have toy guns, so I suppose it must be the TV or other kids at playgroup. Fortunately, I find he is still easily distracted and my way of dealing with it is to tease & play with him and say "what's that little finger doing?", "what's that funny noise?", "are you a broken aeroplane?" and pretend that I have no idea what he is really doing. Usually, the thought of being a broken plane makes him giggle and he has to fall on the floor to be really broken and then forgets all about the shooting stuff.
It sounds as though yours have a more comprehensive understanding of what a gun is though, so I'm not sure my tactic would work there. Could you think of other distraction techniques?

Been there - had ideas - dropped them!
A complete failure!

My son now has guns (not bought by us though)
and jedi light sabres (Dh and I like to play with!) He also has a doll and loves to play mums and dads with his sisters so whose to say?

Ill know I have truly failed when I see him on crimewatch!

I think it's pointless trying to stop them. I had toy guns as a child, also learned to shoot an airgun, and I've been anti every war that's happened in my adult life.

There's a deeper issue here anyway, which is do you disapprove of violence altogether, or do you think force is justifiable to protect yourself and vulnerable others? If the latter, then surely violence and bloodthirstiness in small children shouldn't be totally vetoed, should rather be directed and controlled, eg making it clear that they should NEVER start fights.

That's an interesting point, sml. Personally I find it hard to decide exactly where to draw the line. What is violent play and what isn't?

If a child waves around a toy gun, pretending to be James Bond complete with other 007 stuff like a pretend mobile phone and sunglasses, is that in itself is a violent act? Should you stop the game immediately? Or is it only violent if he hurts or shocks someone, ie jabbing the gun in the chest of another child.

I'm not sure that simply playing at being James Bond is violent, even if a gun in involved. It might be seen as undesirable role play for boys, but then, sadly, so many boys games (cowboys and indians, soldiers, alien invasions) are a bit un PC.

Girls have it so much easier!

Both dh and I shoot clays regularly, so ds sees "real" guns being cleaned on a regular basis. He's still too young to come out with us, but we're already teaching him about gun safety etc. He also, at 3.5yrs, is into guns, but no more than any of his contemporaries, who have no "contact" with guns.
I'm pretty relaxed about it all. After all, boys will be boys, but ds never points his gun at anyone, as I've told him not to. He's desperate for a lesson (but'll have to wait until he's at least 8), but I think that he's starting to realise that guns are real, heavy and VERY dangerous things, and that all the "POW"-ing etc on the telly is only make believe.

Just looked this up on www.jointogether.org, which is an American site and is therefore based on American children:

"...it is estimated that the average child will see 8,000 murders and 100,000 other acts of violence in the media by the time they complete elementary school." *

OK, so this is America, a country where they constitutionally have the right to bear arms, but the same point applies in the UK too: the amount of violence children see on television.

I think this is probably as much the issue as whether we let our children have toy guns: I, for one, am uncomfortable with even having ds in the room for Eastenders (which I don't watch any more anyway), since it seems to have got increasingly violent. I feel this normalisation (probably no such word) of violence is a bigger problem than toy guns, although I don't have them in my house either. Just a thought, what do people think?

• sorry, couldn't find the source for this estimate.

jsmummy, I totally agree with you about Eastenders; if ds should still be up and it comes on I will turn it over. I'm appalled at the number of violent programmes on tv these days, even in the afternoon. For example, Diagnosis Murder is on at 2pm in the afternoon and this week there was a storyline about a driveby shooting at a school. This thread has prompted me to get on to the BBC to complain.

But this sort of roleplay amongst young boys seems to be normal. My brother/cousins/their friends all pretended to be cops and robbers, I remember back to the school playground all the boys would re-enact the previous night's The Sweeney or Starsky & Hutch. How many of these have grown up to be hardened criminals - none as far as I know.

I think it's all down to parents' attitudes really and leading by example. If kids grow up in a household where there is violence and they are not taught that hitting, punching or whatever is wrong they will see it as normal.