Should kids play with toy guns

Should Children Play With Toy Guns?

I know this question has been asked a lot of times and is highly debated in society, so here it comes… should children play with toy guns?

A while back I told my husband I don’t want our son to play with toy guns. For me it just feels so wrong on so many levels.

Recently my son had his third birthday party and while I was planning it I was wondering how to go about things. Would it be rude to tell all the moms to please not give toy guns for a gift?

And what would happen if someone did give my son a toy gun for his birthday what would I do?

Should Children Play With Toy Guns?

So the situation was taken out of my hands because time goes so fast and the birthday party was organized in a rush of chaos since it was December. We got home from his birthday party laden with gifts.

When he opened all his presents he got two guns. One was in a SWAT team set. A big black gun that made machine gun noises. The other a harmless and fun water gun.

Now where do you draw the line? Are water guns fine? Are brightly coloured guns fine while black realistic looking guns aren’t?

My son was over the moon with all of his gifts, especially the big black gun. He started charging around the house telling us he is shooting us dead.

My heart dropped, it was all so wrong but how could I now break his heart by taking away his prized gun?

Fortunately toys are not made to last and by the end of the following day this black gun was broken into pieces and I could throw it away.. by the way I am going to be writing a post soon about the terrible quality of the toys today!

I’m not going to go into all the points that people have brought up for and against toy guys, the simple fact for me is that guns are intended to kill people. Guns are associated with violence.

For me it is just not ok for my children to play with toy guns. I will never feel fine with it and I am going to go with my gut feel on this.

For my son’s next birthday I will remember to let all the moms know to please not give any toy guns. I also make a point never to buy toys guns for anyone else’s kids.

Violence vs Nudity and Sex?

Something happened at the school a few weeks ago that I just wanted to share about that fits in a bit with this topic.

My son is… shall we just say quite boisterous right now. He is an angry little toddler, throwing tantrums and yes he is hitting and kicking too. So he is being a typical three year old boy.

There were a good few times I collected my kids from school and a teacher told me that he had been misbehaving.

On the one occasion she said he had hit one child twice through the face with his bottle (reminds me of my drinking days…)

I was very embarrassed and told the teacher I would deal with it. Each time she brushed it off saying she just wanted to let me know, but you know they do that at this age.

Then I arrive at the school and this same teacher tells me in a very serious manner that my son has been incredibly naughty today and it is serious.

I start to panic wondering what could be worse than my nearly 3 year old hitting kids in the face.

She tells me that twice that day my son pulled down his pants in the sandpit and showed the other children his bum.

I blink wondering what else is coming for this to be so bad right? When it is clear nothing else is coming I start giggling.

This did not impress the teacher who then told me that if I am laughing my children will see it and think it is a laughing matter. She said that the school is conservative and don’t take this sort of behaviour lightly.

Now I wasn’t laughing because my son flashed his cute little butt cheeks at school, I was actually giggling at the craziness of the fact that this school considers a 3 year flashing his butt a much more serious offence than hitting another child twice, hard through the face with an object.

Where is the sense in that I ask?

At this moment my son made an appearance. Wearing only his tshirt, flashing all his bits to me, the teacher and the entire class. He was holding a full toilet roll that was dripping wet and when he saw me he asked me to please help him. When he turned around his cute little but cheeks covered in poop flashed at the class.

Now I have to keep a straight face?

See now I don’t consider myself the type of mother that let’s anything go, but I do feel that I have my priorities straight. I have no issue with nudity or sex. Yes for sure I am not talking about porn here, but if my kids walk into the room and the tv is on I would much rather have them walk in on a sex scene or a bit of nudity than a scene of violence.

I’ve noticed that tv programs and movies regularly show violence, even in cartoons. We live in a world that is so desensitized to violence and where our children grow up surrounded by this.

We live in a society where there is so much crime and violence, yet we allow our kids to play with a toy replica of a killing machine?

We live in a society with skewed values where butt cheeks are forbidden but violence towards another is ok? Well I’m sorry but I go the other way on this one.

I say bring out the cute butt cheeks and stop the violence.

What do you think? Should Children Play with Toy Guns?


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19 comments

  1. Morning! Thank you for sharing this post. My son is 2years old and we went to visit friends. They have 2 older boys in primary school. They love to play with toy guns/video games…so my son was very excited about these guns- I am not really n fan…I tried to take his attention away by asking him if he wanted to go and play outside on the swing…he was more excited about this lol and totally forgot about the toy gun. I would not buy them for my son…but in these situations…I would try to distract him with something else instead of saying: you may not play with toy guns. He is 2…lol…so I try not to say “no” “dont touch” too much..as he will try and test the boudaries. I prefer my child to play with lego, puzzles…educational type games…something that can help him explore, build and develops his fine and gross motor skills as well as planning and processing skills.

    • Anelle I feel exactly the same way. I am also a fan of puzzles, books, lego and other toys that are educational or teach him skills.

      I have also had my son play with toy guns when we visit people and I didn’t make a thing about it. I know I can’t control everything.

  2. Violence and Nudity topic: your son is still very young…he is still learning what is wrong and right..what is appropriate behaviour for a social environment. I feel that hitting another child should be more of a concern than flashing his cute little bum. I am sure he is just a normal 3 year old, testing the boudaries of what is socially accepted behaviour…hitting is obviously not good…so he needs to be made aware of the fact that he should not hurt his friends, that he should use his words to tell his teacher if he is upset with a friend or if someone is bothering him. This takes time, his teacher should talk about good/kind manners on a daily basis to remind the class how to treat your friends. This can be inforced at home as well…talking about feelings…good (hug) and bad(hit) touch. Then…my son enjoys playing naked in our garden. He is still so innocent…obviously at school I would not like my son to walk naked but they are very curious between the ages of 3-6…If I was your sons teacher I would have done the following if he was outside showing is bum to his friends: I would go over to him and ask him to quickly come and help me in the class…then when we are alone I would say: Listen my friend, teacher Anelle thinks you are a very clever little boy and I am sure it was fun showing your bum to your friends..they had a good laugh..teacher would like for you to keep your pants on beacause you are my big boy! I would not make a huge deal about it…I would mention it to you as his mom and ask you to just remind him at home that when he is at school he should always keep his clothes on. I would also make sure that during my morning ring…I would have a short discussion…mentioning to them about being different(boys and girls)…maybe have a pic of a girl in swim suite and boy too…and that the areas that are covered by your swim suite are private- we dont show them to our friends.

    • Anelle yes I agree totally with you. I have had a talk to my son about being clothed in public and he nodded very seriously and later flashed his bum at me and his sister.

      He has just turned three years old so it is also important to remember that he will take a little bit of time to grow up. He finds bums very funny right now.

      • 100% he is still very young and understanding what is socially appropriate behaviour takes time…it is our role as parents/teachers/friends and family members to just make them aware of what is right and wrong without harming the childs concept of self…I would never want a child to feel that he/she is “bad/naughty”, when it comes to their bodies they should feel positive and proud! I want to encourage kids to explore and develop but also setting up boundaries where needed. Xxx

      • Anelle I agree with you on that one, I want my children growing up with a good sense of self confidence and feeling secure about their bodies.

  3. Before my baby i worked at a school and i must say that boys will be boys…
    Even if they dont have the guns to play with they will “shoot each other dead” with their hands.
    I dont agree with it at all cause in todays world you dont want them to grow up thinking its right to shoot someone but i dont think we can stop them.
    We can try our best but if my friend want to play i wanna play too.
    Its crazy how violence and nudity are on the tv even cartoon channels… im not even talking about the music channels!!!

    Just gonna have to put that parental control on all the channels. Lol

    • Oh yes Marisca, my son has been using sticks and lego, anything he can get his hands on really, and pretending it is a gun. My question though is how come a two year old knows what a gun is, how come he knows it is used to kill someone? Isn’t that just a sad fact to start with?

      Oh don’t get me started on the music channels, while I honestly don’t have an issue with nudity I do have an issue with the scantily clad women in music videos thrusting and twerking away like that. What sort of impression is that making on my children? We don’t play the music channel in our home at all!

      When I was a kid music videos were all about the music and perfectly good to watch.

  4. This is a very difficult topic I feel. Almost like the cry it out method, some moms are for it others dead set against it. I myself NEVER believed in it yet I have a friend who swears by it and used it from the day she brought her little one home.
    I have a daughter, very much a lady in EVER aspect (no idea as to where she got THAT from, as I’m quite the opposite), so thank goodness the gun thing is something I’ve never had to experience, and to be honest, I don’t really know which side of the fence I would fall. As for the nudity…. well LOL my 4year old STILL thinks bums are funny, and any moment she has, she gets “naked” and proceeds to shake her little bum at us and even has a song she sings for it. She is, however aware, of where its “safe” to be naked and who to be naked in front of. I felt like a drill sergeant teaching her that 😛 I totally agree Lynne, definitely more bums, because when that cute little tooshy does present its self I cant help but giggle and be filled with so much joy <3

    • Exactly Tamara, he has the cutest little bum ever and he knows it. He is always showing us at home and laughing. To kids bums are just funny and I think that it will be like that for a long time to come.

      Yes I have been teaching him not to flash his bum but well we are still working on that. I do put more effort into explaining to him why hitting, kicking and pinching is not acceptable.

  5. Yes…i dont see y not…

  6. This is a mixed emotion topic as my son is 11yrs old he plays with water pistols and toys guns however he is not aloud to aim at people or animals he actually puts up target for aiming. he wears glasses so have been informed aim for eyes is good for improvement. Stating that I also dont encourage it as I believe it can later lead to violence but it can also lead to defending 1 self her in our Durban City. We all have our own opinion and I believe in protecting family and defending yourself. i am not saying my 11yr old son is going to do that now haha but in future I would like to see that I taught him self defence. yes there are many other ways of self defence but not in circumstances when you are being held at gun point or an intruder is in your house and ready to hurt your family

  7. This is the one of the toy I try to avoid, I really don’t want my son to play with it because I believe it doesn’t have any value to teach a child

  8. see this again i dont see wrong with it water guns and clap guns i will allow but also with it will be rules like dont aim in someones face or body or animals and those kind of rules break the rule guns get taken away.

  9. Am so scared that if he continues with playing toy guns,when he grows up he might say i must buy him the one that have a shooting things and that will br a habbit,so i dont want him to get used to it.

  10. Its actually nice to see everyone opinions and how everyone feel about it as everyone feel different about this kind of stuff which is good if everyone had the same opinion we would have had chaos in this world.

  11. I dont see a problem with my son playing with toy guns. He has those that a hoot out the rubber arrows and those that just makes a noise. Overall he is not violent.i always tel him to be gentle and play nice. I will obviously let him understand that its a toy gun. He is 3. When he is older we will have these types of important discussions. Like real guns are not toys

  12. I personally don’t like my boy playing with toy guns. He is at a stage where he do things that he sees. We do not watch movies or any programme with violence, killing etc.

    We have Netflix and there is a programme called Troll Hunters. My son loves that programme. I’ve notice that every time he watched an episode, he takes his blue plastic cricket bat and he starts hitting randomly. he will hit me, his sister, the wall. I said to my husband that we need to stop this.

    But on the other hand…a water gun is so much fun but where do you draw the line.

    All I think is that what ever you and your husband decide, you need to stick to the decision.

  13. I allow my son to play with guns, there is the light up ones, some has rubber bullets that stick onto surfaces they are shot at, and there is the water guns.
    Boys will be boys, by allowing him to play with it does not mean that he is going to grow up to be a gangster or a hit man. Simple example is policeman, my son has a full policeman costume and he plays dress up every now and again.
    I do not allow pellet guns, that is not for any child to play with.
    He has passed the phase of buying any more guns or cars, now it is all about different types of animals.

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