Toy Guns

[Midnight_Fairy]

Interesting links

https://www.richlearningopportunities.co.uk/pdf/bang bang gun play and why children need it.pdf

https://www.education.com/magazine/article/Ed_Boys_Guns_Okay_Play/

 

[CharlieKeys]

I do think hip hop videos or that hip hop culture do encourage gun crime... they glamourise it and they seem to make it seem ok to carry a gun or a knife on them. But then this goes on to a whole new topic of can media really influence someone that much to carry one? Though I have noticed that there are a lot more white people involved in knife crime recently, and maybe it has something to do with culture. I worry about when I watch TV and they feature guns that that is having an influence on him, which is why I try not to watch anything like that - but at the same time I don't want him being completely naive as I think sometimes naivety can lead to more of an interest in something.

I'm still not sure what to do... I guess I'll see what happens when he gets older... but there's a lot of interesting arguments here both for and against!

 

[Feltzy]

When I went to drop Evie off at nursery some of the boys had made some pretend guns out of bricks and the teacher told them off and they had to take them apart. I wasn't sure how I felt about it tbh, my initial reaction was that she was being a bit ott. Water pistols are toy guns, Evie's had one of them and I never saw a problem with it.

 

[Ozzieshunni]

When I taught preschool, we didn't tell them to stop, just that they were water squirters instead and they should try to put out fires. This was only because of the population I worked with. We didn't want to encourage gun violence, but understood that it was a part of development.

 

[Sarahkka]

This is such a tough one.
I'm not sure that I have much to add other than my confusion on this one.
As the mother of two little boys, I am protective and strict about them seeing any kind of violent imagery. I don't think they are old enough to process that sort of thing yet and I think it would be horribly disturbing for a little child to see the kind of graphic violence that we find even in cartoons these days.
Until they are old enough to have a discussion about violence (defense vs aggression, etc), I am a pretty strong censor of what images they see and what toys they get.
Having said that, why is it that I think playing pirates or knights and dragons is charming, but playing army and gunning down the enemy is awful?
I do think it is pretty hypocritical.
I also think (at this point, anyway) that gently discouraging "gun play" will be my strategy, as making anything taboo generally has the opposite effect. And all along the way, there will be a lot of discussion about play vs really hurting someone.

But yeah, not an easy thing to parent, is it?

To be fair, if I had daughters, I would be wrestling with how to deal with oversexualized toys like Barbies.

 

[Ozzieshunni]

There was a great project done by a girl who made a realistic model of Barbie as if she were a real person. There's been several articles on Barbie as well (https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7920962.stm). It's really interesting how disproportionate she really is!

 

[ShanandBoc]

I dont think any 'weapons' should be marketed as toys for children. I think its wrong. War, violence and weapons are not games.