What are people teaching their children!? (1 Viewer)

[Jeff_CusBlues]

But how else is he going to kill the monster once he gets the upper hand? lol

Just kidding. I'm with the earlier poster and believe you have a fine young son.

 

[MickeS]

I can see why the details like the loading of the gun and beating the monster afterwards bother you. It's a little too close to the realm of reality, where it's gone from "fantasy play" into something that some kid he has played with has obviously seen something in a movie or on TV, and taken that and incorporated it into his playing.

Obviously, I'm no expert, but I would think that the problem is if your son starts incorporating things like that into games that are less fantasy, and more real, say like... oh, I dunno... tag. Like, it might seem cool to him to not only tag someone, but to beat the person up afterwards, since that's what he does in that other game with the monster. Just an example, but I'm sure you get my point.

Other than that, I wouldn't worry. Kids mix fantasy and reality all the time, as a way to process what they're learning. I've heard many kids speak confidently about aliens that they've met, and other things that are completely made up, but they treat it like it absolutely is real. Just a phase, I think.

I would be more concerned about stuff that actually matters: like how he treats others when he's not playing fantasy games, manners, following directions, taking initiative, reading social situations and so on. If he does fine with that (which is where, IMO, many parents seem to be too lazy to try and do something, until it's too late) I wouldn't worry about the games he play.

 

[Kevin Grey]

I saw many R-rated films when I was around that age (most without my parents knowledge). Something like Underworld would be exactly the type of R-rated movie I would have gravitated toward (Wolf Creek would not be).

As I get older (I'm now 30) violence and gore bothers me far more than it ever did when I was young, because I now understand the real world ramifications. There are movies that I can't stomach now that wouldn't have fazed me at age 15.

It really depends on the child. I never had a hard type disassociating fantasy violence and real world violence but I knew kids who did and certainly couldn't handle more adult material until they were much, much older.

And I definitely think you need to be careful about sheltering your child too much. I had a friend of mine who was from an incredibly restrictive household (to the point where the parents would cut out the lingerie ads from JC Penny catalogs) and, IMO, he had some pretty severe social problems because of it. To the point that he actually craved any hint of violence or sexauality in any media. Definitely not healthy.

Unfortunately, parents will never be able to police their children 100% of the time. I know that much of my exposure to "forbidden" material came at friends' houses or sneaking material well after the parents had gone to bed.

One of my wife's relative's six year old child was at our house recently and I was showing him a Need For Speed racing game on the PS2. He started asking me specific questions about when and where different things occurred and it dawned on me that he was talking about a Grand Theft Auto game! I definitely had to question where he might have been exposed to that!

 

[Joe Szott]

If you put two boys in a room with toy guns, they will shoot each other.

If you put two boys in a room with toy swords, they will slash at each other.

If you put two boys in a room alone, they will wrestle.

If you prevent them from doing these things, they will do them twice as hard when you are not around.

Our boys love to paint, read, play with trains, matchbox cars, and fight with toy bats/swords with equal vigor. When our friends' kids come over that don't allow any 'violent' toys, all their kids do is obsess over any toy bat/sword/gun they can find to the exclusion of everything else. Why? Becasue they are boys.

Unless your son is beating up other kids, he's normal and the kid who taught it to him is likely fine as well.

PS - The best thing you can do for your kids is to embrace these instincts and direct them instead of fighting them IMHO. Sports and/or martial arts is a great way to expend some of this energy and provide building blocks for a happy life. Kids love judo, they teach it as early as 5 yrs now. It's basically stylized wrestling and throwing at that age, boys suck it up.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

True that is, Joe.

My younger sister's first is a boy and she was determined not to have him grow up "macho like my brothers." She read every "expert" who told her not to indulge the things that little boys are interested in so that he will grow up "sensitive". Basically, they said to treat him like a girl. So she bought him educational toys and building toys and never let him have "violent" toys, thinking she was protecting him from his own tendencies. She finally saw the light when she brought home a Lego set and the first thing he built was (you guessed it) a gun.

 

[todd s]

When my 2 daughters were young...under 4. I tried getting them into Batman, Superman or even Star Wars. They had no interest. And their favorite Disney movies were anything with a princess. My son who will be 3 this month. Is the exact opposite. Loves Bats, Supes and SW. And watches Tarzan & Toy Story constantly. He also loves cars & trains. Something my girls had no interest in. And we didn't force anything on him. I have all the Disney dvd's and he went right to the so called "boys" movies. So their is something definitely genetic involved.

 

[MickeS]

Got any names of the experts she read? Most "experts" normally don't agree with that, as far as I've seen, but then again I haven't read much . Unless you're talking specifically about providing toy guns, perhaps, maybe the "experts" don't agree with that.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Yeah, the kid with the Lego gun gets laughed at by the kids with the cool "real" toy guns.

 

[Jeff Ulmer]

Of course you did, we live in a military society, and have to be trained from a young age that killing is okay. The "monster" concept is all part of the dehumanizing process. Kids need to be conditioned so they feel comfortable dominating others, they will need that skill later on. They also need to learn the skills of soldiering at an early age so when they grow up they can use those skills in combat against human "monsters," just like their parents and government say is good. Cowboys and Indians is an important learning tool, it teaches us that the white guys are better than the brown guys, and lets us know that if someone looks different, they are our enemy. It is the basis of survival, kill or be killed!

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Good god, I hope you are not serious. Please edit the smilies back in, please. :rolleyes

 

[MickeS]

Well, the bad guys in our wars were always Germans... maybe it was too much work trying to look like an Indian.

Can't say I disagree too much with Jeff Ulmer's assessment, except I think the main cause for this is that humanity is predisposed to care about defending one's own life/group/neighborhood/city/people, be it in the form of arming oneself to insure continued peace, or in the form of war against an aggressor. This is not a bad thing, how else would we survive?

Kids playing war, or cops and robbers, or whatever, are just expressing this need, in a simple black/white way. Most kids play the "hero" in these scenarios, it seems to me. Now, that might all change with games like "Grand Theft Auto" though...

On a somewhat related note, I remember once when I did my miltary service that we ran out of practice ammo (the kind that only shoots blanks) when we were out in the woods practicing some kind of defense and the officer in charge of leading the exercise ordered us all to just shout "bang" instead. That was one of the most hilarious moments of my adult life, all of us playing like we were 8 years old again.

 

[Jeff Gatie]

Yeah, the indians, germans and robbers are always the kids with the Lego guns.

 

[MickeS]

Ha! And the SAS commandos were the ones with the hockey sticks...

 

[MarkHastings]

Well, as far as kids knowing how to load a gun, that's always been the case. Boys have always thought it was cool to pretend to load a gun and shoot monsters.

As far as that, I don't think that's a big issue. The thing that makes this action scarier now-a-days is the fact that kids are starting to use guns to kill others.

As was mentioned, YEARS ago, it was harmless to see boys pretend to use guns because there was no fear about them growing up and shooting an entire school up, but now that is a big fear and we start worrying about a child who knows how to 'pretend' to load a gun.

Should this be a concern? Probably, but I really don't think it's a concern as long as the child is raised properly. Again, as was mentioned, the only time this 'knowledge' is harmful is if the parents don't 'parent' the child properly. That's when the knowledge becomes bad.

A properly raised child SHOULDN'T use that kind of knowledge for evil and will understand the dangers behind guns and learn to respect them.

Too many parents (now a days) don't bother to raise their children with respect for guns (or other dangers), hence the reason why so many are so violent.

 

[ThomasC]

Ditto. I had toy plastic revolvers when I was a kid, but I would've been too scared to touch a real gun. I knew the difference.

 

[Max Leung]

Chimpanzees in the wild have been observed playing war. I mean this in a literal sense. They will send raiding parties to corner individuals from an outside group (aka tribe), and beat them to death - tearing off limbs, chewing off genitals, and other forms of unpleasantness.

But hey, humans are different right?

Just be glad your boys aren't making lego thermonuclear weapons...they all know that Mutually Assured Destruction is no fun at all (and if the other side has no nuclear weapons they wouldn't play anyways)!

Boys draw the line at nukes...leave that to the men! :p)

 

[MickeS]

What does that even mean?

 

[StephenA]

I think he meant that chimps have been observed doing many of the same violent acts as humans, ie warfare, gang fighting, etc.

I grew up playing cap guns and other toy guns and weapons, rough hoousing with friends and cousins, using fireworks, playing video games, watching all kinds of movies, and all that. I wasn't sheltered, and got scraped up and hurt while playing with friends and cousins. I even got stung a few times once when I was in the woods with my friends and we stepped on a yellow jacket nest, which taught us to watch where we walked. I was also taught the difference between play/fantasy and reality and how to treat people, so I never was violent or shot up people or anything like that.

 

[DaveF]

My dad took me to Alien in the theater; I was about 8. We didn't make it much past the egg-pod scene. I don't think I've ever seen it all way the through, since. Not the best parenting, but based on my experience, a kid will come out fairly unscathed in the long run if this is exceptional, not normal, behavior.

 

[Citizen87645]

My first movie was Jaws at age three, but I was more interested in the ice cream sandwich my mom bought than what was going on onscreen. I don't think we stayed for the whole thing and that was mostly because I couldn't sit still for long.

I had a mild fascination with guns in grade school. I'm sure I would have been flagged by today's standards for checking out many a book on guns and war weaponry. I was always envious of my friend who had various types of very convincing looking cap pistols. Ironically I didn't shoot a real pistol or shotgun until I was 23.