For me it's guns, swords and power rangers. We have super soakers, but we call them super soakers, and only play with them when it is hot out and they have water in them. They're put away for the year now. I don't care for swords because invariably kids end up hurting one another, and it's easy enough to cause pain with throwing a toy or hitting or whatever. Figure we don't need another toy that can do that.
Power Rangers though, I've never really watched. I remember Libby's preschool saying that it was violent, and the kids ended up trying to karate chop & etc. to other kids. So I never went there. Will wants them now, but I've still never gotten him any. MIL sent a halloween pkg to the kids, and a PW was in it. Will won't get it.
But then I do let him play with Bionicles, and I guess they're violent. :shrug: I guess I'm weird like that.
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I have no problem with my son playing with toy guns. Boys love playing cops and robbers and cowboys and indians.
I didn't let Colin watch Power Rangers, either. I didn't let him watch a lot of tv.
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of course i still made lego guns and stuff, but i mean when i played with the lego dudes i wasn't shooting them up or anything.
i guess maybe more productive games, maybe if i *created* the guns it was better for me then simply just running around shooting things.
then again i did play with ninja turtles... i don't completely understand it but i think it's up there with "no tv before school, no tv until your homework is done, and only after dinner"
everything in moderation. oh as for power rangers i watched that alot but we were too old to karate chop each other. the little kids did though.
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When I was a kid we all had our own .22 rifles by the time we were ten and as soon as our parents felt we were safe with them we went target shooting when we felt like it. Nobody panicked when we were seen walking down the main street in town carrying them and going into the hardware store to buy ammo. We weren't dumb enough to think you could shoot someone and they would get back up to play again.
When my kids were that age the local rec. department had a BB-gun safety course which I sent them to. Then I got them BB guns. That lasted about a month before I took those away when we found they were shooting at each other. They never got any rifles and I got a gun safe for my guns. My father never needed one for his guns, I surely was not going to take them and shoot anyone.
Somehow there seemed to be a disconnect in what society or our schools teach for responsibility or values shortly after I went through the growing up process. Maybe we should thank Madeline Murray O'Hare. Kids don't listen to their parents anyway so it wasn't particularly my parents who taught me how to be safe with guns it was the grown-ups all around me.
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It's really quite funny when they once saw two cousins play like they shot each other and one of my boys turns to me, "Whaaat is he doing?" like the cousin had lost his mind. Made me feel like I was doing the right thing.
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One thing I've learned about being a parent that fits well with my personality style, is if I talk-the-talk, I've got to walk-the-walk. So in the instance of seeing too much of our society viewing guns as being fun whether it's in movies or video games or song lyrics, to feel right about raising my kids, I might appear to go overboard, but I really feel that I need to draw a line somewhere and my personal choice just happens to be at my front door.
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Until...my sister in law gives my kids a whole chest full of her son's old toys that he don't play with anymore. It had about 10 guns of different sizes/shapes. Lazers, six shooters, everything.
Guess what my kids grabbed instantly and started playing with? Yep. The guns.
We have gradually weeded them out, if a toy gets broke it's gone. So we only have a couple left.
My kids do love their lightsabers, however. They have classic battles with them. Put Obi-Wan and Darth from the first movie (episode 4) to shame.
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My mother didn't buy us guns. However we did grow up in the country in
a time where she was comfortable letting us roam out of site for hours at a time. So we went to other kids houses and played with their guns.
Funny thing was she did buy us this set of giant tinker toys...I guess we
were supposed to build stuff, but mostly we just wacked each other with them. :shrug:
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