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S/O Boys and Guns?


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My 3, almost 4 ds has a birthday coming up, and he has taken a liking to guns...he is my first boy, so this is new territory for me, and I'm just trying to get a feel for how to navigate this...I should start by saying we are not hunters, don't live on a farm, and dad won't be taking him at any point to shooting ranges/that sort of thing. So, I'm trying to decide how much to foster this interest :confused:. I like the sorts of things JMCremps' site has (not thinking bb gun of course, but some of the ones for play), but I'm just trying to get a feel on whether I want to foster this? Any thoughts or suggestions? Also, are there "rules" you have for when they play with them (no shooting at people, ok to shoot at people)?

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I watch a little boy during the day that is just your son's age. My rule with him is we only play with guns (real or pretend) at the house. I don't worry so much about who / what he is pointing them at as they frequently take turns being the bad guy / big bad wolf / monster, but after getting some looks at the library when he started pretending he had a gun in his pocket, I put a stop to gun play outside of the home.

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Well, and he does it even out of his fingers :), so I know you can't totally avoid it (and not that I think we need to), I'm just trying to figure out if I should actually invest by spending money on them, or leave it to the things we already have on hand that he converts to them :).

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Elastic guns are a favorite for kids in our family for the last couple generations. We played cops and robbers all the time with them. We are a family that lives in the country and guns are a necessity to life out here. We are super big on safety, but I find that kids who are comfortable with playing with guns, tend to be more careful with them. The real thing isn't as fascinating if it's not a forbidden thing. With the elastic guns I have been allowing the kids to shoot at each other. I spent my entire childhood shooting at, and being shot by my brothers and it didn't make me into a killer. Mom and dad often talked to us about gun safety so it didn't make me think it was alright to shoot people IRL. Kids in this area play with elastic guns and then air soft guns all the time. It's either that or sticks.

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I would invest in a nerf style or perhaps a rubber band gun. My boys, at that age, were more interested in the projectile rather than the gun. Stomp rockets are also fun for the same reason as are marshmallow shooters. At that age, I prefer things that are not realistically gun-like.

 

FWIW, we have a veritable arsenal now. The boys are responsible and have had plenty of safety courses. They hunt and target practice. It's hard to enforce the not pointing at a person rule when you have Nerf wars, water gun wars, or rubber band war. I tried, but they couldn't see the difference. We discussed ad nauseum the results of shooting someone or something living...maybe that worked :)

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Well - the boys I have known will make guns out of sticks if they don't have a play one, lol - so I think it's genetic.

Anyway, our rule was that they could never point them at a person or at pets - only "dinosaurs and monsters".

 

:iagree: that's what we do. It's a boy thing, and if you don't make a huge deal out of it, it shouldn't be a problem.

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I guess I've never been very thoughtful about it. Sure, we got them toy guns. I don't see the big deal.

 

We don't own actual guns, never hunt, don't live on a farm, etc, either.

 

I have told them to steer clear of real guns and I make sure that when they visit friends there are no guns in the house. Well, I guess I've done more than say, "Steer clear." I have given them long talks about leaving guns alone, and told of children killing each other by accident and they are NEVER TO TOUCH a real gun. Yeah, I've given them the Mom Anti-Real Gun Lecture.

 

Other than that, they have an arsenal of Star Wars blasters, nerf guns, popcaps guns, etc. They youngest is 7 now, and he's probably had them since he was 4.

 

No shooting people in the face with the nerf guns. We tell them to aim for the butt.

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He is not allowed to play with anything that remotely looks like a real gun. When playing "guns," he is not allowed to point at any living thing. He goes to the shooting range with DH sometimes and DH wants to be sure he KNOWS that guns are not toys and are not to be used as playthings. He talks extensively with him about not touching guns unless DH is with him supervising and okaying it, and not to be around other children (or anyone who is not being responsible) with one. Honestly, we haven't had any problem with him wanting to "play" guns since he's been able to shoot real ones.

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Why does it make a difference that your ds is a boy? My dd7 is going to get a bb gun from her grandmother for her eighth birthday. Her grandmother will teach her how to use it with an emphasis on safety. My mother, the previously mentioned grandmother, is an excellent shot and very comfortable with guns. She lives alone and I do not worry about her safety as much because of this.

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We have an arsenal in our basement!!! TONS of Nerf guns, air soft guns, bb guns, etc. I've taken my two older boys to the shooting range and shot real guns. We've always had them wear the eye protection as a safety precaution. But, other than that, we've not had any problems with it.

 

Now, all these toys are in two huge boxes in our basement. We can put them in another room if families that don't play with guns visit.

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IMO, depending on the nature of the kid, it can be impossible to keep guns away from them. A dear friend who was very anti-gun finally gave in when her son began chewing his breakfast toast into the shape of one, so he could shoot the characters on morning television.

 

I think children are definitely smart enough to tell between a mostly imaginary gun or a play/fun gun toy that is designed to shoot marshmallows, water or foam objects at friends and a real gun designed to kill someone. For the record, we only use the play guns that are obviously fake - plastic, neon colors, crazy shapes, etc.

 

We also have many real guns and my dd has been trained to shoot since she was 8yo. She takes part in a 4-H shooting sports program and is very knowledgeable and safe around guns. I agree that exposure and training have definitely taken the mystique away and she can now see them for the tool they really are. We do live on a farm and she has often seen dh or me grab a gun and run outside to chase predators away from killing our farm animals.

 

Each family has to make their own decisions regarding this issue. But I do think that for some kids, they will not be denied. They will shoot with their fingers, the aforementioned toast, a pencil, a wad of paper, a stick, or anything their abundant imaginations can make into a gun. I also believe that these kids would be the ones most likely to be overcome by fascination and excitement if another child did pull out a parent's gun.

 

IMO, if your child is one of these kids, it would be important to give them safe and practical gun education. I would much rather they get it out of their system at a gun range with proper supervision than sneaking to look at one handled by another novice in a dark corner of Uncle John's garage.

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I fully believe that the desire to participate in play with weapons (not necessarily guns, but weapons) is a part of the processing that is necessary for normal development.

 

Children do not bring the same baggage to the issue that evaluating adults do. Kids typically work out issues of power, control, good, bad, community villians and community helpers. Weapon play becomes a prop for that expression.

 

I neither "foster" or "discourage" the use. Like other play, I have some rules around it. My weapon rules when my kids were younger were things like "no weapon play in groups" and not allowing weapons at public places. I also had rules of not "killing" family pets or family members, but allowed them to hunt for and kill the "bad guy."

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We didn't do gun play for many years. I allow it now that ds is much older and can understand my personal boundaries with gun play. However, point it at me and the toy gun goes straight to the trash. Other people's children are also not allowed to make me their gun play target.

 

We do live in a gun-totin' culture in this state, so we have done gun safety courses and practiced shooting with real weapons in safe, coached situations.

 

Anyone looking for a great gun safety course, Shooter's World has a free course called "First Shots". They allow children of any age as long as a parent is there. There was an hour or so of classroom education and then we all had a guided opportunity to shoot a handgun. The ammunition and range time was free as well. I highly recommend it to anyone.

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Why does it make a difference that your ds is a boy? My dd7 is going to get a bb gun from her grandmother for her eighth birthday. Her grandmother will teach her how to use it with an emphasis on safety. My mother, the previously mentioned grandmother, is an excellent shot and very comfortable with guns. She lives alone and I do not worry about her safety as much because of this.

 

My dd plays along with the boys with their rubber band wars, nerf wars and so on, just as I did with my brothers. She'll learn how to handle a pellet gun next year, just like her brother did this year. She enjoys it, perhaps differently than the boys do, but she still enjoys it.

 

If you don't like the idea of guns, the second favorite game for boys around here, is a bunch of foam or duct tape weapons, a couple walkie-talkies and send them out in two groups to claim a spot and defend it. sword fights on the beaver dam are among some of my best memories. Getting in trouble for losing my rubber boot in the beaver dam, well that wasn't nearly as good of a memory, lol.

Edited by Dory
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When my ds started getting interested in guns about a year ago (also age 4!), we got him an old-school cork gun. You know, the one with the cork on a string that makes a big "POP" and "reloads" itself. He plays with it all the time! And the best part is there is nothing to get hurt with or parts to lose.

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I've never agreed with the argument that boys are genetically wired to wanting guns and will make them out of anything... I mean, if you expose them to guns, then I can see there might be an appeal. But you don't have to expose them. We never watched movies with shooting when our kids were young, and our son was never the least bit interested in them.

 

That being said, we're not absolutely opposed to them either, and when all of our children were older and more understanding of our boundaries, we let them have nerf guns, and my husband and son together made a potato cannon.

 

Our son went hunting for the first time at age 23, and he enjoyed it. I wouldn't mind my girls learning how to use a real gun either.

 

This isn't to say I'm for or against guns as toys (I don't have strong feelings on it), but to point out that I don't agree with the "boys will make guns out of anything, no matter what" logic.

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We have plenty of toy guns here and my boys have all shot real guns at Scout camp. Our only rules for toy guns are no shooting at the pets ever, no shooting water guns at people who don't want to get wet, and no shooting at heads or faces. We have lots of Nerf guns and play laser tag, so it's kind of hard to say never to shoot toy guns at people.

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Well - the boys I have known will make guns out of sticks if they don't have a play one, lol - so I think it's genetic.

Anyway, our rule was that they could never point them at a person or at pets - only "dinosaurs and monsters".

 

Yes, it is absolutely in their DNA. All boys will create guns and weapons so they can be warriors and master their world.

 

This is a good rule.

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