DS1 likes shooting people - should I stop him?

[ttalloo]

DS1 has recently started shooting people - making a gun with his hand, pointing it and making shooting noises. He must have picked it up from pre-school (he's nearly 3 and a half) as we don't let him watch anything that would give him such ideas, and I'm not quite sure how to handle it.

My MIL says that DH did things like that at the same age and he hasn't turned out badly , DH says that it's normal for little boys to want to do that, and my mother thinks it's just wrong (but then she had two girls so boys are a bit of a surprise to her).

Is this something that all little boys do? I don't want to make DS1 feel that he's doing something wrong if it's just a rite of passage (and he is having such fun), but I just don't feel comfortable with him going around shooting people and saying that he's going to kill DS2, for example.

I know that he doesn't understand the enormity of what he's saying and pretending to do, but I am struggling to know what to do for the best.

In answer to your question:

Yes

Its not nice to shoot random people.

It's something they pretty much all do, and mostly doesn't mean they are going to be violent or like guns when they get a bit older. But you can tell him you don't like it, and he's not to do it in the house or to strangers, or granny, or the cat, or whoever. He's old enough to know not to do things if other people don't like it. But he'll probably still do it with his friends, and at nursery etc.

Thanks for that AMumInScotland- I feel better knowing that he's just doing what other boys do, but I'll definitely start setting some ground rules for shooting (things not people).

DS1 is 6.6 and still in this phase, as are most of his friends.

We tell him he can 'shoot' things, but not directly at people and definitely not at random strangers.

Wait until every lego model, stick, pencil, shoe, piece of toast, etc becomes a gun too. It's so much fun, this phase.

And ds2, aged 3.6 has also just started it, so that's another 3+ years of repeating 'No, ds1/2, please don;t shoot the lady, it's not nice' ad infinitum .

A little boy did this to me in the street the other day. I just did a comical face. He was very sweet-looking and I didn't mind. But I think if he was my son I would have told him not to

DS has just turned 3 and also does this.

He has also seen dh and I playing the boxing game on Wii Sports and is now OBSESSED with "boofing". He and dh now play "punky town" where they pretend to punch each other, but he has been warned in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that this is a game only for him and daddy and it's all just pretend.

No phone calls from the nursery yet so I think it's sunk in....

I just hadn't realised how much little boys like this kind of behaviour! You do your best to bring them up to be little angels and then nature takes over...!

MIS sums it perfectly. It is completely acceptable to recognise both that something is normal and that it may not be socially acceptable.

Wanting to pick your nose is also a normal behaviour in children, but still one we tend to clamp down on. Noone goes "ah, but it's only natural, it's what little boys doo" when the 6yo is exploring the inside of his nostrils at the dinner table. But at the same time, noone jumps to the conclusion that there is anything wrong with the child. We just tell them to stop it.

Ds does this a lot less now (5.5 yrs old) though he did do it an awful lot from about 3 years old too. Telling ds not to do this didn't work very well.

What did work over time I think was what we called the "love gun " game ( I got it from a book called playful parenting)

If ds ever played "play shooting/kill you " games with me instead of saying "stop it/ I don't like that etc" I would say "ah it's the love gun, it makes me want to love you, I love you soo much etc" and I would chase ds around clutching my heat saying "I can't help it I need to kiss you, I love you" All done with overblown gestures and lots of falling around

DS loved it and would run away laughing. The whole thing became a game and was repeated a lot, Gradually over time ds stopped doing the I'll kill you thing and replaced it with the "lets play the love gun game" instead.

Quite often (though not always of course)the I'll shoot you/kill you is just an inept way of trying to engage with you. Find a way to respond that is fun for both of you.

Yes - our DS (2 1/2) likes to 'shoot' us too. I've read that playful parenting too. I have issues with the phrase 'love gun' - apologies for my puerile mind - but I like the game idea, I'm just not sure how to phrase it.

Interested to know how Mums who work / have husbands who work in the forces feel about this one.

DS has a sonic screwdriver my nephew gave him which we say is used for 'healing' with.

However,I would rather not have a knee jerk reaction to shooting games rather than use it as an opportunity to open up age appropriate discussions about things as DS grows up.

I remember we were all obsessed with playing 'war' as children at primary school. I think children work things out through play - it doesn't mean we're all raising psychotic killing machines.

FWIW, my dc's nursery has what I think is a great policy on this.

Their stance is acknowledging that it's generally boys that like eg pretending to shoot each other and that telling them to stop may somehow be inferring that (usually) girls' 'quiet play' is better, and hence judging theirs as somehow 'wrong'. They guide staff to develop the 'role play' side of things eg "Oh, no, what have I done? Shall I try to escape?", I suppose rather than the 'killing' aspects. Ditto trying to encourage kids to express feelings like anger, frustration, dislike more fully than "I'm going to kill you".

They also expect the children to ask other people if they mind being 'shot' and that both children and adults have a right to say 'no'.

I became aware of this when I was dropping my dc off one morning and I heard the Centre Manager saying to a little boy "No, I don't mind if you shoot me and I'm very glad you asked".

Rosebud05 - great post, thanks for that. Much better than a love gun and something I can work with, brilliant!

Thanks very much for the advice, everyone. AMIS, your advice about shooting things not people seems to have gone down well, but I do like Rosebud05's suggestion about asking if people mind being shot, because I'm sure that once he's with his friends DS1 will struggle to remember that they're not things!

I think my initial dilemma was that my initial reaction to DS1 shooting was just to make him stop altogether, even though I sensed that that might make him feel he had been doing something wrong (which, compared to hitting his brother, for example, shooting with an imaginary gun clearly isn't). Whereas to be able to turn what can seem quite a threatening activity into a fun one that he can enjoy without frightening people, is much more constructive.

I did do something similar last year when I bought him water pistols - I referred to them as squirters, and encouraged DS1 to squirt rather than shoot, and that did work. Actually, maybe it shouldn't have come as such a surprise to me that he's taken to shooting people with such gusto, because he does love squirting...

I think it's perfectly acceptable to tell dcs that it is not polite to pretend shoot people unless you know that they don't mind. It won't quench their male spirit forever, any more than being reminded of table manners or not being allowed to use swear words in front of your Baptist aunt. The suggestion to ask if they mind is brilliant (for shooting, that is; I wouldn't recommend it for using the F word in front of elderly Baptist aunts).