While a healthy and reasonable amount of conflict occurs in our nursery class, neither strong media images (a child insisting on being Batman or the Little Mermaid and refusing to allow others to alter the plot) or extensive gun play play a large part in the imaginative life of our nursery class. That being said, a parent in a conference asked for my thoughts about how to respond at home when a child plays pretend shooting games. What follows are some words I wrote a couple of years ago when I had children who seemed more predisposed to want to create shooting games in my class. There is also a link to an article in Mothering Magazine.
Bang! Bang! You're Dead
Some parents have asked questions about gun play at school and home. Here is an article from Mothering Magazine.
The article can help us as parents frame and clarify our responses to our child's play. I have many things I like about the article. I also find its evidence inconsistent, and it seems to promote a lot more talking and explaining than is necessarily good for children before the age of 7. Without writing a full critique, here is a list of some of my thoughts.
1. One can make all sorts of rules about gun play, but so much talking is also paralyzing and awakening for the young child. What my evaluator Annie Gross said when I asked her what to advise if a child seems stuck in gun play is that what young children really need is to be in the presence of lawful, physical work (and the chance to help themselves): digging in a big area (not just a small sandbox), watching real bonfires at home, splitting wood, pruning, cutting, moving heavy things, spinning wool, ironing, cooking, and more.
2. It is our job as parents and teachers to help a child who is stuck in play, whether it is gun play or always wanting to be the Little Mermaid .
3. Television and video game depictions of guns have no place in a child's life before the age of 12 or so (right after the age at which Eugene Schwartz recommends introducing the Harry Potter books). In a Waldorf curriculum, a child will have experienced the lawful hunters of Native American tales, the vigor of Hebrew tales, the violence and trickery of Norse and Celtic tales, the archetypes of conflict, death, and resurrection in tales of Greece and India. Then a child is more prepared to respond in a healthy way should these media images appear.
4. Narrative versions of the lawful hunter, whether with gun or bow and arrow, can be very appropriate for the 6 or 7 year older child. The Grimm's story of the 4 Skillful Brothers or How Six Men Got on the World come to mind; tales from Native American traditions in second grade also come to mind.
5. Traditional childhood games of cops and robbers and the like work best after the child reaches Piaget's stage of "Games with Rules" at about age 7 or so (this is often also the time when it is best to introduce board and card games; open-ended imaginative play should rule the day before this). A lot of learning takes place at a home play date when a group of children decide how many times you have to be shot to be dead, how you come back to life, what are rules for determining if you are hit or not, and the like. This tends to require too much talking and planning for children before the age of 7.
6. To just forbid gun play outright before age 7 can tend to make children sneaky.
7. In order to promote social inclusion, once children are really ready for gun play, it is best that these games happen at home so that other children are not inadvertently drawn into or "put-down" by being shot in a game they are not playing. Recess has too many children and too few adults for gun games to have a healthy effect at school.
8. If a child pretends to shoot another child or adult who is not playing with that child, we as adults must respond just as we must respond if a child insults or teases another child. The way to respond will not always be clear. Sometimes the response needs to be quite strong.
9. Wrestling with other children and with parents is healthy and helps develop a child's senses of balance and touch. It is a shame if gun play interferes with this process. Kim Payne often prescribes wrestling with mom or dad for children; if your child seems stuck, I recommend giving this prescription yourself.
10. With older children at home, it is a shame if gun play and technology deprive children of chances to tackle, wrestle, climb, jump and do other daring things that help them meet each other and the world with force. Children seek rites of passage and genuine encounters. While one could argue that tackle football with helmets and pads is dangerous (I played football and learned to use my helmet and pads offensively; studies are showing long term damage to professional football players from hard impacts), the too often outlawed childhood game of tackle football without pads--or ideally, the chaotic game of tackling the child or parent with the ball who then tosses it up for the next brave soul to catch--more like rugby, allows a genuine, forceful encounter, and allows for bonding through physical touch.
11. It is quite conceivable that a father or mother would use hunting as lawful, meaning work and may include a young child in this work. One could argue that in an area with, say, a surplus deer population, hunting and eating venison is a way to feed a family without making a large impact on the environment. My point here is not to open a debate about farming practices, hunting, and the like, but to help us frame a way of inquiry. The soldier is a worthy and lawful archetype, one the child will meet in first grade fairy tales and the tales from Norse, Celtic, Hebrew, Greek, Roman, and World histories in ages to come and is one that can live in us even if we choose a path of nonviolence following Gandhi or the like.
12. To force a child to be peaceful does not create peace.
May these thoughts be helpful.
With warmth and light,
William Geoffrey Dolde
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