Kids and Gun Play: Good or Bad?

"My gentle, innocent 5-year-old son was playing the yard with his friends yesterday. At first it was just running around, but then, he pointed at his friend and yelled, 'Bang, bang, you're dead!' I was confused and just a little bit horrified. Where did he learn this behavior, and is this normal?!"

Sound familiar? A lot of parents get upset when they see their kids engaging in gunplay. But is it harmful or just harmless role playing? Daphne Brogdon of Cool Mom asks, "Is gunplay harmful?"

Do you let your kids engage in gunplay? Do you let your kids play with toy guns, water guns, and the like? Join the Momversation by commenting below.

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teng
12 months ago

Just minor thing, the brunette (I never watch this so I'm unfamiliar with names or normal protocol) who is against violence named her son Archer. Does she have ANY idea what that means? I think she might be sending him mixed messages...

turbo
1 years ago

were are all the male vioces on this topic? no wonder we are raising the weakest pussy boys in history of the world!

sheena.jean
2 yearss ago

Wow what a great topic! I love hearing opinions from people in different parts of the country than me, it's so interesting! Here in VERY rural western Pennsylvania, that is a no brainer. I don't know if it would be possible to raise kids without guns. Everyone here has a gun. When I was 7 my dad bought me my first beebee gun (to my mothers surprise/dismay) and I absolutely loved it. Right now my husband and I have 2 beebee gun rifles just to shoot at little targets off our back porch for fun, and 2 real, very dangerous pistols that are for our protection. Now, this isn't a dangerous area. Very seldom does someone die of a gun on purpose here. However, coyotes and bear are a much bigger problem. We take our dog on long walks through the woods behind our house and we'd be down right stupid to not take a gun with us. Coyotes have made their way right into our backyards. They're over populated and a safety problem in our little town, legal to kill all year round. Another interesting thing, my husband and I are both military. While some people will think to themselves "See! That's what happens when you get a 7 year old girl a beebee gun!", I must remind you that my husband and I both work very non-violent office jobs. I also must remind you that our military is important, does important work, and keeps everyone here secure despite the sad fact that their job is essentially to kill the bad guys. So, my perspective is so drastically different from most people on here! I don't see how we could possibly raise our children without guns appearing somewhere. What I plan to do is very early on teach my children to RESPECT these weapons and what they can do, as my father has me. Even play guns were never allowed to be pointed at yourself or someone else. Another fact that we all need to face: When children play these good-guy-bad-guy games, that isn't far from the real world. There are good guys and bad guys! I think it's unavoidable that kids (especially little boys) are going to play some sort of violent game in their life. They're fun! That's all they care. I think rather than focusing on the fact that your kid is pretending to use a weapon, you need to focus on their context. Are they a hero? Are they saving Mary Jane? Or are they malicious? Do they say mean things to show they're intentionally trying to cause pain to someone? The intentions are so much more important than the fact that the stick they're holding is a gun in their mind.

momraisingboys
2 yearss ago

We get this topic all the time at Raising Boys World because, even if you don't buy your son a toy gun, he really will still pick up anything - a stick, a spoon, a cracker, his own hands...and fashion it into a rifle. It's important to remember that this is all imaginative play and boys do tend to be especially attracted to these games because it is their way to express their protective and competitive feelings. If parents are still troubled with this behavior, a good idea is to talk with their kids and communicate some rules. Emphasize that it is great they are using their imagination and fantasies, but make rules about pretend-shooting at real people because it may "hurt their feelings" - so you would like for them to keep their targets imaginary or their fellow pretend-shooting enthusiasts. Other than that, if you are also teaching your child a respect for life and awareness of gun (or insert whatever other weapon) safety, there really is no harm in this imaginative play. Here is what some of the moms have to say about this issue at Raising Boys World. http://www.raisingboysworld.com/podcast/194-connversations-with-mothers-...

minerva682
2 yearss ago

I am a little late on board to comment on this conversation but I wanted put my point of view out there. Personally I believe that good guy/bad guy play (killing or no) is a way that children learn to understand good verses bad. Everything kids do boils down to play and they use it to wrap their little minds around new things, and explore cause and effect of different situations. In the world today it is scary to see our kids playing in this manner, but if we guide them to learning to make the right choices this play can be a positive learning experience.

Carita
2 yearss ago

Referring again back to the earlier comment: "To me, it doesn't sit right, because pretend gun play is pretend killing. Would you be totally cool with your kid pretending to strangle someone, suffocate someone, stab someone, cut someone open with a chainsaw, beat someone with a baseball bat, run someone over with a car? I mean, what makes gun play the ok play violence?" I've never played it myself, but I'm aware that if you take those things and throw in a couple of prostitute avatars, you'd basically have Grand Theft Auto. It just doesn't seem as though enough parents are taking the whole video game obsession seriously. I hate to say it, but despite the controller, too many kids are "virtually" performing those behaviors on a regular basis in my opinion. Like it or not, tons of kids are "playing" with guns every single day. Scary.

Alice
2 yearss ago

Carita, we did cover video games in a previous episode, and I'm with you--I think GTA and the like are bad news. Play-acting violence in such an involved, graphic way? Then let's throw some misogyny on top of that? No. If Henry's friends had games like that, I wouldn't let him go to their homes. Someone upthread (Ohana Mama, was that you?) brought up the topic of guns in a friend's home. And KEE-RAP, you guys, is that ever the topic that chills me to my very marrow. Oof. I actually have a friend whose son came home from a playdate and told her that his friend had shown him his dad's gun.

NJ_2_NorCal_Mom
2 yearss ago

Okay, I think I may never let my son go play at another kid's house. Ever. I don't like guns, and I don't let my son have or play with them. He knows about them, but mostly from seeing them on real live police officers, and he knows that those officers have the very special job of "putting baddies in jail." There was a time there when my son was obsessed with this concept. What hit me more is when Daphne said her daughter is more likely to be a victim of violence. Yes. Make her a bad-ass if you want. It can't hurt. I have often tried to convey this idea to my husband. I'm female. I am often alone or with a small child. I LOCK MY CAR DOORS. He gets annoyed because if he's with us, when he goes to get out, he has to wait for me to unlock the doors. I have tried to tell him that to grow up female in this world means to grow up never walking outside at night alone if you can help it, never driving around with your doors unlocked, suspiciously eyeing everyone you see when you're in a strange or known-to-be-dodgy place, and grasping your purse for dear life everywhere you go. Being spacey just ain't gonna cut it, sister. I grew up in a fairly mixed, sort of tough, blue collar neighborhood in New Jersey. I also had two older brothers. I grew up learning to fight. And I wield a mighty fine hockey stick, metal pipe, or whatever else you got handy. I was smaller than my peers as a kid and I wasn't taking no crap from no body. But I don't want my son to be like that. I don't want him to think violence is an acceptable answer to life's problems. I'll kill bugs and spiders in my house (okay, who am I kidding, I'll scream for my husband so he can do it), but anything outdoors gets a free pass. No killing bugs or animals outside the house. There is already too much violence in the world, and at some point I will have to explain a lot of it to my son. I don't want him play-acting at things he'll never be allowed to do in real life.

BabyInBroad
2 yearss ago

"I pretend to die." For some reason, that really got me hard. Maybe because for me, it's not only about "guns (and swords and kicking and punching and biting and...) are bad and hurt," but also about dead is forever. Squash a bug and that's it. That bug is not coming back. I'm also torn over the whole Good Guys/Bad Guys thing. I feel like so many of our social and political problems are wrapped up in this idea that some people are "good guys" and some people are "bad guys." I get that that's a very natural, human thing, but it can also be an incredibly hurtful thing. For the most part, we're all good guys (who happen to disagree about big, important stuff). Having said all that, I think pretending is really, really important. When my son starts playing Good Guys/Bad Guys, I'm not going to stop him (as long as we're firmly in the "pretend" space), but I'm not going to be excited about it either. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to light some nag champa and center myself before drum circle.

Sarah@Ohana Mama
2 yearss ago

I grew up with no guns allowed in our house - plastic or otherwise. And I wanted to do the same in our house now, with my children. However, outside influences and parents who don't see a problem with pretend guns have led us to having water guns and Cameron doing finger gun play (this bugs the crap out of me). NOTE!! Do not ever give violent/gun/knives toys as a birthday or holiday present...you just don't know what the parents are teaching their kids. And that brings me to my post yesterday about how an older child told my 4.5 year old that he had a REAL gun at his house, as if he was showing off. This scared the crap out of me and made me realize that just because *I* say NO to guns and don't talk about them, doesn't mean my child will not come into contact with them thus I MUST teach him about guns and gun safety...other than "No guns allowed." It was a wake up call. http://theohanamama.com/2009/10/super-scary-other-peoples-guns-and-my-ki... Kids are kids and they will play all sorts of games, it's up to us, as adults, to then teach them the reality of what they are doing...from playing doctor (when it gets too much checking out) to playing that they are driving and crashing (hello, we don't want them to drive fast and crash), we need to tell them the difference and the reality of what they are doing. And how reality is much much much different than any Superman or Spiderman movie. Some suggested I take my son, who I do not want shooting guns ever, to a shooting range to see the real effects of them. We may do that (I'm torn..what if he really likes them after that?) Hmmm...

Kids and Gun Play: Good or Bad?

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