Jason Blake, a stay-at-home dad, is bringing up two boys, Bill and Thom, with his partner. Here he questions the impact violent game-playing may be having on his kids…
Our house is like a war zone. No, really. The place is an arsenal. The question is, am I helping to raise a misfit or gangster? Is it okay to allow them to engage in violent fantasy play?
Swords and bows and arrows are the latest must-have, along with Nerf guns, plastic spears, war hammers and Viking helmets. If my eldest came back from the shops with an anti-aircraft missile, I wouldn’t be in the least surprised.
Even when I used to run around with a pair of cap-firing revolvers on my hip, debate raged among parents, educators, and child health experts on this whether playing with toy guns and swords encourages present or future behaviour.
Does it pre-dispose children toward violent confrontation? Or is gunplay and the like it a healthy outlet for natural aggression that also helps a child come to terms with aggression in the world?
.jpg?resize=380%2C285)
No one has an answer it seems. With no definitive advice on whether children should be allowed to engage in violent fantasy play, parents have to play it by ear. Some parents I know absolutely prohibit violent play and claim great success.
All I can do is I salute their watchfulness because I’ve observed my boys make a gun out of pretty much anything that comes to hand: a banana; a rolled up newspaper; a bicycle pump. My eldest once chewed a chocolate chip cookie into a rough shape of a gun and started “shooting” his friends with it.
Anything that inspires that level of invention should be encouraged I figured, so together we embarked on a kind of military history course.
We learned about the Egyptians, the Romans, and the Vikings. Now he is infatuated with medieval knights to the point where I’ve had to make a complete suit of armour out of cardboard tubes from a carpet warehouse and 20 meters of aluminium foil.
He’s quite a sight at times, but, as I explain to curious onlookers in the park, he’s not only mad for swords and fighting but also completely immersed in the world of chivalry. The weapons are only props, a bunch of keys to a plethora of stories and legends.
In turn, all this is helping him develop a keen sense of justice. He’s pulling books off the library shelf I thought would be beyond him. And by externalising the good guys and the bad guys, they are getting to grips with the internal struggles we’ve all faced between our better and darker angels.
Would I be as comfortable with all this if he was toting a plastic machine gun? Possibly not, but I think with guidance, any child’s fantasy play be it Roman or cowboy, or 31st century futuristic, can be channelled positively.
In the end, it all depends who you’re shooting at and why, not what you’re shooting with.
