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I had my first BB gun by age 6, .22 by age 9 and we routinely played with various toy guns that shot little pellets or whatnot.
I lived on the edge of a small town with woods and fields where I would go shoot things after school (like corn cobs or pop cans etc.)
Gun safety was RIGOROUSLY taught and we knew the difference between real guns and pretend guns. Real guns were either pointed at the ground, the air or the target....nothing else.
I currently have no guns other than a pellet gun but thats because I'm in a more urban area and have nowhere to conveniently shoot and police response to my house is literally 30 seconds as I live 4 blocks from the police station in a very nice area so when you call they are there instantly the one time I had someone trying to steal stuff from my garage.
So, to me it really depends on the parents and the kids personality and whatnot. There is no right or wrong answer IMO.
No. The boys will learn to shoot at the range with dad and his real guns (secured, obviously) when they are older and ready. Not sure when that will be. We are very strict about guns in this house and play toys with them is not part of that.
Guns? Yes, I shot the neighbor kid out of a tree with a BB gun and got whipped.
I would have been more afraid of Lawn Darts as a parent. My sister and I got them for Christmas one year took them out of the box and immediately started throwing them AT each other. They were like a foot long death dart.
I grew up with cap guns and water pistols. As an adult, my home has never had a real gun.
My kids have had Nerf guns, water guns, Air soft guns, paintball guns, rubber band guns and no doubt turned all kinds of things into guns at one point or another. Neither child has had any issues resulting from such.
My 4 yo doesn't have any. I'm not vehemently against it and I don't think they particularly contribute to violence, however I'm not crazy about the idea and am not going to go out and buy one, and he's never asked for it. I haven't seen many of his peers play with them either. I definitely think there's been a big trend away from gun and war-type toys since I was a child. I haven't seen a toy soldier in a long time either. Especially in the areas where we lived, where hunting and gun ownership isn't popular.
A funny thing I noticed: we come from a Russian background and have many Russian immigrant friends here. I noticed their kids, esp boys, tend to be a lot more into the old-school, hardcore gun and war play. They're the ones that tend to have toy guns and run around shooting and bombing each other. Same for some other immigrant groups. Whereas the boys from middle-upper class American backgrounds, like those in his preschool, are a lot milder and calmer and there's no aggression or violence going on. They're much more likely to be cooking in the toy kitchen or bathing baby dolls. My son leans a lot more towards this type of play too. Whenever we do playdates with russian boys, he often ends up not getting the point of the war/combat type games because it's not something that he plays at home or at school.
Guns are NOT toys and should not be treated as such in even a pretend fashion. I think it's weird that people let young kids play with toy guns and allow them to play shoot each other. What is the purpose of this kind of play?
Gun play in young children is actually all about morality. It's about exploring what is right and wrong. It is also about saving people. Young children become the powerful rescuer through this kind of play. They also try out different roles including being the *bad guy.* And, it helps kids combat their fears.
Kids need to develop life skills that revolve around resolving conflicts and while we don't want them to get the idea that resolving conflicts should be done using weapons, playing this out allows the kids to learn how to react to violence and how to resolve conflicts in other ways.
Trust your children. Really. You cannot censor their play. As for using toy guns, swords or other weapons, if a preschooler cannot have the toy prop, they will use legos to build them or use their fingers or bite their sandwiches into the shape of a gun. Preschoolers are very interested in being powerful and that is what guns symbolize in their play.
Trust your children. Really. You cannot censor their play. As for using toy guns, swords or other weapons, if a preschooler cannot have the toy prop, they will use legos to build them or use their fingers or bite their sandwiches into the shape of a gun. Preschoolers are very interested in being powerful and that is what guns symbolize in their play.
I keep hearing this but honestly I haven't seen most preschoolers doing that. Older boys sure, once they start watching the more violent cartoons, but not the little ones I've seen around here, who mainly watch educational-type shows and are not brought up in households with guns or hunting.
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