Are toy weapons toys of war?

Are you teaching your kids to fit into this society or to change it?
I, for one, don't care what society and the world deems as real or necessary, or even normal. And while I won't speak for the rest, I didn't think many of the parents on this board did either.

I'm raising my daughter to be a CHANGE. Not to accept what can be changed. I want my daughter to be strong enough in her knowledge and awareness that her family always will support her, that she will do whatever she feels is the best for herself and the world.

And while, I know, that if I LET them, television, other parents and children, could have an impact on her more strongly than I. But I am not going to let them have that sort of influence until she's older and more strong in her OWN convictions. Parents are the biggest influence until a child goes to school, so until she's five or so, her access to children not raised in the same style as she will be limited. Also, there will be no commercial television in my home. Movies, yes. Shows, yes, on Netflix.

When she goes to school, I hope she's secure enough in what her family's taught her to influence other children to think like her. And not the other way around.

 

I am teaching them to think for themselves and to try and change what they don't agree with with-in reason. I also however want them to have a grasp of reality. They may have to deal with a violent person in thier lifetimes, whether it is a stranger, friend or possibly husband. Can you say that you have never had to deal with a violent person? I have and not because I invited them into my life either. They don't have to like violence just understand that it is a real possibility and how to handle it. This is all going pretty far off the OP intent I think though.

I don't think playing with toy weapons is teaching them any of this anyways. I was just saying that kids will play fight with play weapons even if you try to take it out of them. The instinct is there naturally and culturally. You will not get rid of the violence in the world by not letting your kids have fun pretending. People like this are also the ones that think video games cause violence. Humans are a violent species in many ways. It is just a fact, even though a more perfect reality is wished for by many.

 

I've dealt with violent people, when I had a violent attitude. When I stopped seeing guns, real or toy, and fighting, play or otherwise, as okay, I stopped dealing with violent people.

 

I'm not trying to bust your bubble, but violence is every where. Even if you don't see it, it's there. I live in suburbia and people rob, rape, and harm people all the time. Turn on the news or open a newspaper and look at all the violence that is going on. We should not teach our children violence, but we should teach them how to defend themselves. There is a HUGE difference between the two and we must teach them this.

 

I began parenting firmly against guns or any weapons… realistic or not. I screened all television shows & movies like a hawk, and didn’t watch the news or even channels with commercials while my son was awake so he wouldn’t be exposed to anything violent or inappropriate. My husband even refrained from playing any of his video games while the lil guy was awake, for the same reasons. But somewhere around his second birthday, my son started turning everything he played with into guns & swords. Coat hangars were brandished at invisible dragons, and Duplos blocks were fashioned into guns designed to eradicate the evil monsters hiding in his closet. Where did he get this from?

We fought this for another 5 years, until my very upset 7 year old rationalized with me that if there was a time & place for everything, then there was a time & place to fight. And that fighting required weapons. This conversation went on for hours, and went several places I hadn’t intended to bring up with him until he was a little older.

The outcome? We do allow weapons play. He is not allowed to aim them at any living things, but has targets (visible bullseyes & invisible monsters) that he may shoot or slash at. He is practicing archery as an extension of his interest in weapons, and to help with hand-eye coordination. And yes, I do let him play a few “violent” video games after a long discussion with DH. I’m not terribly happy with it, but I’ve been outvoted by a son who wants to grow up to be in law enforcement or in the Navy, and a husband who hasn’t really seen this one “my way” since the beginning. I’m not happy with it, but I also realize that I can’t win EVERY battle
love,
mom

 

I think that teaching the difference between what is appropriate and whats not is the key, IMO. I mean, everyone has made great points, but yeah, violence is all around us. I don't want to shelter Leane from everything and then one day when she's older, be completely bewildered by all the shit that's going on in our world. But at the same time, there's an appropriate age and time for all violence, like homeschoolmama said. I have never liked toy guns, but at the same time, I was always the one being "shot" when I was little. I still don't like them, and don't like the thought of kids pretending to shoot eachother.
But as for waterguns, i think those are fine. I loved mine when I was little. It was more about having fun and seeing who could get eachother the most drentched than violence.
Same thing goes whit tae kwon do. I was in that when I was younger, and it taught me a lot about defending myself, but ONLY using it when it was appropriate.
I'm going to keep the voilence shhh with Leane until she's older. But I'm also not going to pretend its not out there. I agree with freek, I want her to be a person who tries to change things instead of conforming to the voilent world we live in.

 

Weapons are not bad... its the people who use them wrong. The tools we once used for survival are now being used for mass distruction more than survival purposes they are meant for. They were a part of daily life. Teach children the proper way to use them. They've earned a bad rap, instilling morals and love in our kids early on is the only way they will ever learn. It won't matter what they play with. A child learns from example. They copy you. Ever see those little girls who scream at and spank their dolls? Where'd they learn that? Hmmm... probably the same place a 13 year old boy learns to put his anger behind a tigger and pull it on someone. A bad parent. It all comes down to how they were raised and taught.

 

Weapons should not be portrayed as toys, ever! The idea in itself seems to stupid. I know that from the start of time children had toy bows and arrows, etc... but that is when those weapons were part of your need for survival and daily life. In this age a gun is not needed by the average person for daily survival. No weapons, "toys" or otherwise, will every be given to my children ever. And if they ask why i'll gladly tell them.

Then, if as adults they decide to pick up a weapon, they will know where their mother stands on the issue and hopefully understand the potential impact of their "hobby".

 

that's pretty much the point I was trying to make. We don't have a problem at all with real guns or swords or with learning to defend oneself. I do have a big problem with pretend violence, which only serves to desensitize a person to the horrors of violent behavior against other people, making it acceptable in a child's mind for people to act that way. I don't want my kids to think it's ever okay to point a gun (real or pretend) at another person unless they intend to shoot them with real bullets in self-defense, in which case, I want them to be able to aim for the heart and empty the clip without flinching.

 

I agree with this, except the pretend.

I don't think this is the case. Almost all of us have been exposed to "cultural" violence. I don't believe that it desensitizes people to violence. I don't think any tv show, video game or playing with toy weapons has anything to do with violent people. I know lots of people who play/played these sorts of games including most if not all of us. Did it make us violent? I didn't effect me that way. I still like to shoot and kill people in video games but I have never even had the faintest ideas of turning a gun on someone outside of self defense. I still say boys imparticular, like to play "hero". The are taken out the bad guys and the monsters. When they start pretending they are shooting up a school or robbing people I would get concerned. Playing like they are cops or out defeating monsters is natural. I would even go so far as to say this is when boys are forming their protective "manly" insticts. I also believe that men still should play a protective role in their family. Play fighting does not lead to real fighting except maybe in a small amount of cases. These people have much more wrong in their lives then just having been allowed to play with a fake gun. I watched movies about serial killers as a kid and I am not one.

 

Toys are toys. Boys like to pretend that they are protecting the world like girls like to pretend they are mommies. It is just natural. If you do not give them a toy gun they will just pretend sticks and hands are weapons. I don't think women understand this drive in men from an early age. Even the men who are against violence now played out pretend fights when they were kids.

 

I don't ever and will never let my kids have toy guns, swords knives or any of it. My husband and I collect weapons, we own a shotgun and rifle for hunting, and a handgun for home protection, all safely locked away from the kids, plus we collect swords, knives and daggers, mostly historical replicas, and we keep them far away from our kids.

We dont want our kids to EVER get it in their heads that these are toys, so they are never allowed to play with violent toys, if a friend brings them over we explain that they have to be left outside, and they can take it with them when they leave our house, and we let any and all baby sitters know of our rules. My 4 year old will see a toy guns at the store, and say NO, we aren't allowed to play with those. They don't question it, and they don't know of our collection, and it works fine for our family.

 

I didn't have toy guns growing up, save a few super soakers. My family was kind of poor during my early childhood, and we couldn't afford a lot of toys. As I got older and my parents got better jobs, I started reading all the time and lost interest. But I did make my Barbies kick each other’s asses, I reenacted fights I'd seen on the street and whatnot in my dollhouse, and my cute colorful troll dolls with the little plastic diamonds for belly buttons were way more violent than any action figures I've heard of. Between the ages of 8 and 14, I played Magic, which is really a war game. I've been in one "fight" in my entire life, which involved a girl pushing me twice and me pushing her twice and walking away. That was when I was 9, and I was just defending myself. I've never been in another fight. Frankly, I'm not sure the first incident really constitutes as a fight. I've yet to have brought a gun to school, killed my parents, shot a cop, or ever just hit a person. I knew the difference between right and wrong, that life is not a game and there's a difference between making your Barbie doll knock another Barbie doll out, and actually hurting a real person.

 

Very true. Most kids can seperate fiction from reality. No toy is just going to make a kid violent.

 

I grew up playing GI Joe with my friends at recess, owned my fair share of super-soakers and nerf guns, in my teen years moved onto violent video games like Duke Nukem, Resident Evil, and the like, and still play the newest versions of these gasmes today. My father, who used to be a cop, collects guns and has taught me to use them all. However, I am strongly anti-war, have never been in a fight, don't own any guns myself, and detest violence against individuals (although I think defending oneself is perfectly acceptable). I think it has more to do with upbringing than the kind of play-toys you use as a child. I was never allowed to hit my siblings, call them names, and was taught the difference between real and make-believe.

 

We don't have toy guns in the house. (We don't have real ones, either, except a crappy BB gun Bear bought at a garage sale.It is hidden in the garage, and we have no BBs for it. Of course, if one of them wanted to, they mostly likely could find it and get BBs. I am assuming.) I don't like the idea of guns, because one can kill or maim, with little involvemnet, you point and shoot.

That being said, Lennon wanted a toy sword (Tolkein influence, I think) for his costume he wears to the Renn Faire. We said OK, but it was not to be brandished at people, pointed at people, and there was no play killing of others involved. It was just part of the costume. It worked well, he was about 11, and I don''t think it made him more violent. But, again, it was only for special occasions (as he said, "Mom, knights need to protect the Castle and the Village.") He is a peaceful boy, hates war, does CA work, and if he were an aggresive kid, I think I would have said NO to the toy sword. At 11, he knew the difference between a toy sword as part of a Renn costume and actual war.

Sunshine at one point, when Sage was about 2 or so, got her a water pistol. It didn't even really look like a gun, but she was pointing it at people, ect. I didn't like where it was going, and her not being able to really rationalize, I took it away. She never missed it.

My father always had guns in the house. I have two stories, which some of you have heard, that I want to present:

1) The time he mistook my mother for an "intruder" and almost shot her. My dad kept one of the guns, in his dresser, next to the bed. One night my mother had insomnia and went down stairs. My father, half asleep, heard things down stairs (and it being a haunted house, it was not unusualy, but evidently these sounds were more "human") he loads his gun, still mostly asleep. Downstairs my mother hears "Click click click" and realizes what is going on. She starts screaming that it is her, not a burgler. My dad is almost all the way down the stairs, gun cocked (or whatever you do to get a gun ready to shoot) an d aimed before he wakes up more and realizes his mistake. This could have been one of those tragedies that the NRA says "never" happens to "trained" gun owners. My father was "trained" lessons at the shooing range ect. But, he was asleep, paranoid ect. He COULD have shot her.

2)All my life, I was told (as the NRA and other 2nd Amendment nuts say) "Never touch the guns. NEVER touch the guns." He showed me where they were, where the ammo was, and HOW to load them ect. One day, I was home sick and my parents went to teh store. I was 11 years old, and a VERY obedient child. I was in the kitchen and heard noises in the other room. (This house was always making noises.) I was scared, as it was one of the first times I was left alone. SO, I get the gun that was kept in the kitchen, quietly load it and walk around the house, with this HUGE Colt 45 long barrel pistol. There was nothing to find. So, before my parents came home, I unloaded it and put it away. I could have hurt myself or someone else. I had been "Trained" not to "ever touch the gun" and I usually did what I was told. I was scared, there was a weapon. I loaded it and took it out. I could have really hurt or killed someone. I never told my parents. I used to ahve to leave the room when my dad would tell people, "A well trained child will NEVER touch the gun, if you tell them not to." A few years ago, he was going off on this, with some antigun people, and I finally told the story. LOL! He tried to pawn it off as "Remember that time you smoked marijuana?" OMG, I got caught with Pot, by my parents when I was SIXTEEN, not eleven.. I stil don't know what his point was. But, he still beleives, after only raising ONE child that children will do ANYTHING you tell them, if you tell them enough.

I prefer not to have guns as toys, and not to have weapons in the house.

 

A couple of things here. One it is a good thing that you knew the proper way to load and unload a gun and how to handle it with safety. If not then you could have accessed it and not known proper handling techniques. Secondly, there should NEVER be a real gun in the house accessable by children. One of the things the NRA stresses is locking up your guns with children in the house. Show me something from the NRA that states otherwise. The "never touch a gun" thing is safety for when your child is in someone elses home. IMO kids should be taught shooting skills and proper handling of weapons but they absolutely should not have open access to weapons.

 

This was 1972, AFAIK, there was not as much press about locking up guns. The idea was that you "needed" to get to them as quickly as possible, if Communists or criminals or someone broke into your house.

I had not been "taught" how to load the gun. I guessed how to (I was a pretty resourceful kid.) I was lucky I didn't shoot myself.

What about the time he almost shot my mama?