guns and uncomfortable feelings
Ren
" I am pretty determined to not superimpose my own discomfort on her
joy and to try to see what she is doing through her eyes instead of mine
before I speak."
That's great!
I don't think our personal judgements on everything help our children understand or learn about the world. I can understand a real gun being something a family might be very uncomfortable with, but even then, I would help my child find a way to join a shooting club or find someone that enjoys guns if they were interested.
And toys are just that...toys. They don't hurt anyone, they can't create violence. I've seen enough role playing violence here, to know that it doesn't lead to real feelings of violence.
Both of my boys are extremely peaceful individuals, Trevor was even in several anti-war protests last year. Both of them have enjoyed shooting BB guns, arrows, sword fighting and playing video games like GTA.
It's play. Humans act out a lot of things they don't intend on doing to other humans. It's ok.
Our way of honoring those that are uncomfortable with guns and not imposing limits on the toy gun toting kids, is to have them only point them at people that have agreed to play the game. My children brought toy guns to our weekly play date once, and a family there had kids that were NOT wanting to have it pointed at them (makes you wonder if they'd been taught that toy guns were bad).
So I just reminded them that we don't point at anyone who is uncomfortable, get permission first. Only those that are part of the game are ok to shoot.:) They understood and it was fine after that.
That's our standing code....only shoot at those that are part of the game. That's getting back to personal boundaries and honoring other people's space. It makes sense.
Ren
Learn about unschooling at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingbasics/
joy and to try to see what she is doing through her eyes instead of mine
before I speak."
That's great!
I don't think our personal judgements on everything help our children understand or learn about the world. I can understand a real gun being something a family might be very uncomfortable with, but even then, I would help my child find a way to join a shooting club or find someone that enjoys guns if they were interested.
And toys are just that...toys. They don't hurt anyone, they can't create violence. I've seen enough role playing violence here, to know that it doesn't lead to real feelings of violence.
Both of my boys are extremely peaceful individuals, Trevor was even in several anti-war protests last year. Both of them have enjoyed shooting BB guns, arrows, sword fighting and playing video games like GTA.
It's play. Humans act out a lot of things they don't intend on doing to other humans. It's ok.
Our way of honoring those that are uncomfortable with guns and not imposing limits on the toy gun toting kids, is to have them only point them at people that have agreed to play the game. My children brought toy guns to our weekly play date once, and a family there had kids that were NOT wanting to have it pointed at them (makes you wonder if they'd been taught that toy guns were bad).
So I just reminded them that we don't point at anyone who is uncomfortable, get permission first. Only those that are part of the game are ok to shoot.:) They understood and it was fine after that.
That's our standing code....only shoot at those that are part of the game. That's getting back to personal boundaries and honoring other people's space. It makes sense.
Ren
Learn about unschooling at:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unschoolingbasics/
Jon and Rue Kream
>>a family there had kids that were NOT wanting to have it pointed at them(makes you wonder if they'd been taught that toy guns were bad).
**Maybe not. Rowan is very sensitive to having anything pointed at her.
She completely flips if someone points a watergun at her when she's not
playing.
>>That's our standing code....only shoot at those that are part of the game.**That's what we do too. ~Rue
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