Toy guns and toy soldiers

Why do we allow young boys to play with such horrible things?

You may think I'm over-reacting, but I always thought it was pretty irresponsible; allowing children to play games which encourage war and violence in their minds.

I know that most kids who play with things like this when they're younger don't grow up to be psycho mass murderers or anything. Hell, I used to play with stuff like that myself. But it still doesn't really seem right to me.

What do you think? Do I have a point or am I just being rediculous?

 

i played with them..and if i had any children..i wouldnt object to letting them play with soldiers.. i mean how fun is it playing armies and invading other countries..i mean age of empires..thats just good and if i had a child and they wanted to play that id say 'sure go ahead'... playing armies, is damn cool..even if i had a girl..i wouldnt want her to grow up a pussy, if she wanted to play armies or play games that fighting in like age of empires, i wouldnt object..i probably would even help them and show them strategies.

i mean, if ur gonna stop them playing armies, u gotta stop with chess as well, and i wont deprive my kids of chess.. i mean chess started as a fighting game, and was also used as a strategy baord in battles.
i mean and if ur gonna stop them playing armies, u gotta stop them playing on the other end of the scale and listenin to 'trippy' music like hendrix et al.
but hey thats my veiw.. if i had kids i would just be kinda like homer simpson (but not stupid..lol)..but i have no objection in ur choice if u wanna raise kids without war toys.. i mean id admire ur parenting if u can show them that war is wrong and u pulled it off.

 

I would never let my kids play with guns, they arent even allowed water guns and ive gotten alot of shit from other moms that i know because of it. I dont think youre being ridiculous at all JOHN; toy guns de-sensitize our children, the same way that seeing violence does. If our children are raised in an environment on love,respect empathy,reponsibility and compassion, chances are good as adults theses are the traits and virtues they will live by. It seems like handing them a little toy pistle is just hypocritical.

 

Well I'm glad I'm not the only one.

 

I would not let my children play with guns or soldiers either. It is just a gruesome way of playing, and it really makes a mockery of death, and the horror of war. There are better and more wonderful things my daughter or future son could do.



Peace

 

I totally agree.

 

I really don't think it's healthy for the kids because it's kind of teaching kids to kill and that it's good... I think toy guns hypnotize kids and molds their mind too easily. Just like that whole cowboys and indians thing... It's racist and terrible!

 

I don't think you're being ridiculous, as I feel the same way. As a mother of two boys, I vowed that "violent" toys would never have a home in my house. But then, suddenly, they started showing up much to my dismay and disapproval as gifts and whatnot, as my oldest son requested them. In desperation a few months back, I removed all of the toys in which I thought were encouraging aggressive behavior and hid them in the jelly cellar in the basement, as my 5 year old son would get so rowdy and mean-spirited when he was playing with them. Wouldn't you know it, once those toys were out of sight, his playing became much less violent, and his attitude improved.

My husband thinks I'm being crazy, that "boys will be boys" and he always played like that when he was growing up, and that you can't fight "natural instinct". Well, I don't want to encourage my sons to lust for violence. Maybe I am being unreasonable, but I feel strongly about my opinion, at least as far as my boys go. It's fine to act like boys as that is what they are, but does it have to require play-shooting someone to death?

Peace...

 

We don't allow guns or knives or other weapons of mass destruction. I think the first thing it destroys is the child's ability to reason. War creats winners and losers. I want my son to know that life doesn't have to be about who is the biggest, the toughest. The important thing is who is the fairest. Violence does not belong in our little ones' toys.

No weapons at our house,
Kathi

 

what do you all do then when your kid picks up a stick points it at his friend and says "bang bang" and they go running arround playing "cops and robbers" or some other childhood game? You don't have to buy kids guns, kids are creatitive they will use anything.

 

True, but at least you wouldn't be putting a plastic replica of an uzi machine gun into his/her hand and saying "go on sweetheart! shoot the badies!"

 

Personally my son (4 years old) has never picked anything up and said BANG BANG. And hes never played cops and robbers either, or cowboys and indians, the reason is simple, we dont let him or my daughter see things that would encourage that kind of unnatural violent behavior.

 

last night we watched starsky and hutch, lots of gun action in that show, we should have turned it off and watched it another time when our son wasnt awake, but we didnt. anyways, he picked up a compass and was using it to imitate the gunplay that he had just seen on the screen. he knows that we dont like violent toys, and that guns arent toys. i reminded him and he stopped right away. then i showed him how to make circles with the compass and he drew circles for the next hour. he sees the other kids in the neighbourhood playing with toy guns all the time, and understands that we have different rules in our home. it's pretty easy to get kids playing a cooperative game instead of gunplay. it's just a matter of introducing new ideas for them. i can see how kids pick stuff up from the media really easily, and in some homes action adventure violent shows are what is playing on the tube all the time. kids learn what they live. they will turn to peaceful play if that's what they are shown/taught. books like "everyone wins" are full of fun cooperative games for kids of all ages. we adults have the chance to be play leaders and teachers of peace thru cooperative games.

 

I grew up in a household and neighbourhood where violence was a way of life, and to survive I had to be a tough aggresive street-kid. My earliest memories was playing with imitation guns and swords - and I desperately wanted a pick-axe handle like the one my dad carried in the boot of his car for when he went debt-collecting.


So when I escaped as a grown up and had my first son, I vowed no guns, no war toys. We didn't have a tv - so there was no exposure to the violence there.My wife was a quaker, and she took the testament to peace very seriously. We read stories, and listed to the radio, and tried to treat him as a young adult, so that when issues like this came up, we tried to explains our concerns and feelings.

The he hit the school-system and was bullied for his beliefs. The no-guns thing was like red-rag to a bull, as far as other kids were concerned - we all know what it's like - kids can be so cruel and will quickly pick up on what presses another child's buttons. So by the time he's eight, we're reading him Lord of the Rings as a bed-time story (family production, me as narrator, all the rest of the characters divied up between the three of us) - and its a bit hard to both gloss over the violence or my son nagging away at when is it right to fight a just war. During this time he stays away for the night with a friend at their grand-parents house - we known them anyway for years and thought they knew how we felt.

We are given some pictures a few weeks later of the stay. Grandad has brought out his stash of world war 2 memento's and allowed both children to run around the house with (de-activated) pistols, german stick grenades, nazi officers cap,etc,etc. And has filled his head with stories of derring do and combat. Our son has come home believing mum and dad have exaggerated the fears, and should chill a little.

We now have a 21 year old son who is obsessed with weapons, is aggressive and seems to have neither Moominmamma's pacifism or even my old fashioned sense of honour, that you do not strike the weak, that you fight only as the very last resort in order to prevent even greater loss of life. He tells us that is because we did not let him go through the normal childhood development stage of investigating weapons as part of his interaction with other children.

His argument is that we all go through obsessions as we grow up, but most of us either grow through them or the ones that stick with us, (model railway engines, cuddly toys,etc) aren't really a danger to anyone. A few sociopathic individuals may not, but they should be watched out for - and unfortunately most societies will be all too ready to find roles for them. If our son had looked like going down that route, we could have helped in. Because, in his eyes, we didn't trust him, his experiences of weapons was at a much more serious level than the "Bang, Bang, your dead" one.

Maybe he was a one-off and the policy isn't flawed - I just offer this up as one famillies experience.

So with our other two children, (who are 10 years and 14 years younger than our eldest), we have been nowhere near as strong on this policy.I'll get back to you in 15 years time to let you know if this approach worked any better.

In Peace,
Moominpappa

 

The problem is that every child is different, an individual. What works for one will not work for another.

I played with toy weapons, guns, knives etc... Not that my parents bought them for me, more like the neighborhood kids toys. Im not saying that makes it right.

Children are smart. They know the difference between fantasy and reality. If your a sound parent and are raising your child in a sound, loving enviornment then a little sword or gun play isn't going to damage them. Violence is in fact a reality and very much a part of life. Sheltering them from it totaly is, in my opinion, a sort of denial. Not denial in that your depriving your child but denial in that your ignoring reality.

It doesnt matter how much you protect them. Once they enter the public school system all of your hard work gets flushed down the toilet in about a week or two, unless your home schooling your kids....and if so....just hope your kids never cross paths with mine.

 

I think that if you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns. I tried really hard when Al was young to enforce the no gun thing. I instead learned to accept guns and teach him responsibility. We had rules about treating even play guns with respect, pointing guns at people was wrong. I encouraged games of hunting for survival and the only "wars" allowed were against imaginary elements. We don't have tv, we've had it on and off and I try to keep the kids away from excess vilonce on tv and video games, which desensitise to killing. Now he has his own bb gun and I am glad he has it. We still have rules, if you shoot it you eat it is our rule and I am pround to say he has never shot anything but a target. He also has bows and arrows, slingshots, knives and a 22 (he only touches the 22 with his dad). This is the history of humanity, right or wrong weapons and wars of all kind have always been there. Even if your child never even heard of a gun, if he is a mean person he can kill or harm in so many other ways, sticks and stones can break bones. I think it is so much more important to develop a solid relationship with your children while they are young. Only with that can you pass on your values. If you teach them always to be kind and respect other living things as creations of the Father, or whatever your beliefs then you don't need to worry about guns or weapons. Unless you plan not only to homeschool, but keep your children locked away from all other children, they are going to learn things you can't control.
Hunting is a valuable survival skill. While I don't think we need to be killing wild animals when there is so much food and meat being thrown away in this country, you never know what tomorrow will bring and I say better be prepared for the worst and hope for the best.

I say keep the guns, get rid of the TV.
Our children are so desensitised to violence in this country. I read somewhere that the average 6 yo has seen something like 100,000 violent deaths on TV. The video game industry is selling our childen games that the military uses to prepare young men to kill ruthlessly. Wise up people, the whole "guns are bad" thing was started by people who want to control you. It's much easier to control your populace if you terrify them of guns and make murder and violence so commonplace that we just accept it. The same people who make all us sahm's feel bad because we don't feed the system, who want us to leave our childen to them younger and younger so they can make them into "good consumers" .

Look deeper into the problem, don't just put a band aid on it, guns don't kill people, people without reason and empathy and solid human relationships to guide and teach them kill people.

 

Its kinda healthy for kids to play pretending about death and things (obviously theres a line between being scared about what thay are doing to each other and knowing they are just playing) Kides start to be curious about things like death. When a kid "kills another kid in play" He isn't really trying to KILL the person because he dosent know what death really is. Kids dont see it or know it the same as we do so they dont play violent things really meaning to do any damage its just play. I dont let my kid play with guns or nasty action figures promoting violence. He's not into that yet anyways...But I think a small amount of rough play is kinda needed. (nothing extreme)

 

Pay no attention to my husband. He and I see differently on this particular subject, as you might notice. lol I am more for keeping our children away from this kind of thing for as long as I can, as they will spend a lot more time as adults than as innocent children.

Anyway.

I love you honey!

 

In my opinion guns are not toys and we have never allowed toy guns or gun play in our home. We do own guns and use them to kill food and for protection as we live in a place where bears can be a threat.

I just feel a tool with the power of death should be respected to the point of not becoming a plastic toy in the same way we give our kids a plastic carpenters tool kit.