Do any of you that have boy(s), NOT allow guns/weapons etc, for play?

[Embassy]

How does it work out?

Have you done it from the beginning?

Did you change over at some point?

Do your kids accept it or resent it?

What do they play with instead?

Do they just make weapons with sticks, etc? And do you allow that?

 

 

 

We have allowed no weapons in our house from the beginning. My two boys are 7 and 9. Kids accept it. One child would prefer to be allowed to have something like a squirt gun though. Some of his Lego characters have guns. We don't take them away since he doesn't pretend to shoot with them. We don't allow weapons with sticks or allow them to play video games where they shoot to hurt either. I don't know if it will change in the future, but that is how it is now. While we may shield them from violence on TV we don't shield them from knowledge of the horrors of war or how weapons can be used to hurt people. Dh and I lean toward pacifism so that is our perspective.

[Pamela H in Texas]

but I hadn't heard of refusing to engage in personal defense.

 

I have been questioned and even ridiculed on this board about this very topic. We believe there is just about always an option other than violence to deal with a situation. And I think it has been proven in our lives.

 

First, when I was a young teen, some girl got some bee in her bonnet on a made up charge against me. She decided she was going to fight me and got someone to bring me to her. I wasn't particularly worried (naive, I was). I was surprised to see a large group of people with her. She said she wanted to fight because of what I supposedly had said (which I most certainly didn't and wouldn't have). I told her I would not fight her. She said she was going to hit me anyway which she did. She looked ridiculous hitting someone who refused to hit her back. The group dispersed and no one wanted to have anything to do with her. I, on the other hand, had a fan club of sorts. Go figure.

 

When my son was 7 or 8 or whatever, the neighbor boy and he got into it. They had been playing a game on the back porch. The boy didn't like what my son did. My son defended it at the rules of the game. The boy grabbed him up by the front of his shirt. My son popped him in the nose. The kid went home. My son was disciplined (our discipline is largely non-punitive) and marched over to apologize for hitting. We worked with ds on all the things he could have done in that situation and various other situations that might come up while playing. On many occasions, my ds showed himself very capable of heading off trouble in the future. He diffused many situations and walked away from others. He also was able to insist the other child treat him in an appropriate manner.

 

There is rarely a reason for violence of any sort. Children (and adults) can learn better. It's a choice.

[KatDilan]

I have no problem with kids playing water guns, Nerf, laser tag or paint ball with "guns". I see it as a glorified version of tag and I see no escalation into real violence other than what might arise from any form of competition at their age.

 

As far as other weapons play, with my children, I have not observed any violence for the sake of violence. What I have observed thus far has been hero play. They are expressing a desire to fight for "good" and to fight against "evil", not people. In my opinion it is a kinesthetic exploration of a slightly advanced concept that they are trying to grasp and just beginning to really understand.

 

When it comes to real weapons, there is no play. We do own guns both for hunting and home protection. The kids do not have access to them unless we take them out. And when we do we often use the opportunity to teach the children the realities of guns and weapons in general, their practical function, proper safety and handling, and the appropriate settings and reasons for their usage.

[RobinF]

I remember agonizing over this when my oldest was a toddler.

I hated the idea of my sweet baby being violent, so stayed away from toy weapons.

 

Yea...that didn't last.

 

He turned everything into a sword or gun. I was actually quite impressed with his imagination, lol!

 

What I did was stress chivalry, and encouraged him to play as the protector/ defender. We had lots of knight costumes and he could fight dragons and "bad guys" to his hearts content.

I now have three boys, my oldest 11 years older than his next brother, and they all sword play, shoot nerf guns at each other and of course, wrestle.

Obviously the older one tones it down for the little boys, but the understanding is, if you play rough you might get hurt so stop when you've had enough.

 

As far as "does it stop?"...My oldest and many of his friends all have airsoft guns and paintball guns and plan outdoor battles. Dh joins in when he can.

I can think of more enjoyable things to do then collect black and blue bruises from paintball pellets, but that's just me :tongue_smilie:

 

I haven't read all of the responses but this is how it has played out in our family exactly!

 

My oldest is now almost 12 and youngest is almost 5. If they want to wrestle I usually send them outside and they end up jumping on the trampoline instead. They do play with all sorts of weapons and they are all history fanatics so war is a big part of their reading.

 

We live in an area that is mostly military families so the reality of war and soldiers is big in our lives. They see men who are willing to fight for their country but also love their families and their church and this has had a big impact on the boys as well. Nothing like seeing a big burly guy in uniform loving on some little one to sweeten your perspective.

[Audrey]

Since the beginning, I've had a zero tolerance policy on weapons and weapons play. I don't think men are born killers, nor have any need to play at killing. My ds doesn't seem to care. We've never vocalized our no-weapons policy and ds has never asked for weapons -- real or pretend. We do not live in a gun-culture country. It's a non-issue in our house.

Edited July 16, 2011 by Audrey

[lorrainejmc]

Dh and I both agreed to no guns. We never really told the kids, we just never bought any. No one has ever bought us any either. It's an iffy subject here. No one would buy a toy gun for someone's kid without asking if it was OK. The boys have never asked for any but they have never seen TV shows with guns, but they know what they are and what they do. They have never made one, either. Because of my country's very recent history, it makes my stomach churn to see a child with a toy gun.

[KrissiK]

My kids play with toy guns ocassionally. I think if we banned guns, they would want to play with them more. We got the boys bb guns for Christmas and DH takes them out shooting now and then. It's something they enjoy, and we're trying to teach them proper gun safety, etc.

[Peela]

We do not live in a gun culture but my son picked up sticks on the lawn when he could crawl, and pretended they were guns. It really blew me away he could have an instinctual knowledge of them at such a young age.

I wanted to never have guns. Dh convinced me otherwise. He bought ds stupid plastic noisy things at garage sales. They werent used very often and mostly they sat in the toy box. Over the years we had water pistols, noisy guns with flashing lights, and swords. None were used a lot. I am glad I didnt make too much of a fuss and let dh have that one- because I think if I had made a big deal and not allowed them it would have become a much bigger issue than it was otherwise. But I only had one boy so I guess he didn't have brothers to bounce off.

 

For those whose kids are not interested in guns- be aware that that can be a nature rather than nurture thing. In other words, just because you didn't allow guns and your boys accepted it or weren't interested doesn't mean all boys would respond the same to that parenting strategy.

[Laura Corin]

We started off without guns but have allowed them over time. Other things became more important and we decided to concentrate on those.

 

Laura

[Skadi]

We don't encourage "play" with weapons. We teach them how to use them for real. From the ages of six and up, all of our children are expected to take lessons in fencing (sword fighting), archery, boxing and marksmanship (first a BB gun, then pellet gun, then .22 rifle, and so on as they age). We treat it as a PE credit.

[Enough]

We started out no guns, to fit in with the hippie stereotype ;) but over time, we decided that it just didn't fit us. I don't think guns are inherently bad, they are tools that can be used, or abused. DH and I both like to shoot guns for sport (i.e. riflery/target shooting) and are interested in learning how to hunt (either with guns or bows) for food, so over time our no gun policy seemed rather hypocritical.

 

We do NOT, however, believe in guns for self-defense/NRA-type ideology. We are all for super-strict gun laws, limiting access to certain types of guns, background checks, requiring safety courses etc.

 

We do allow very limited access to water guns, but no other type of toy gun, but only because we do allow our kids access to real guns and other real weapons (i.e. bows, both for target shooting) and have made it very, very, very clear that guns/bows are not toys and the effect that real guns have (i.e. you can kill things with them). I think having that access, knowledge, and responsibility has eliminated the allure of toy guns and violent play in general... Of course, I can't know for sure, but in spite of having all manner of weapons in our life, neither one of my kids is very interested in violent play.