4 Year Old Obsessed with Guns!

You need to find something new for him to enjoy that he can sink his teeth into. Toy rockets that can be launched in the back yard is a great alternative and can be turned into a life long love of science.

Honestly, I would remove all the toy guns from the house. If his play time is overwhelming, you need to channel his energy somewhere else. Sometimes that means making the decisions for the kids rather than trying to convince them to do it our way. If you decide later that he is more mature and able to handle them better, you might want to reintroduce one or two water guns in the summer and see how things go.

S., just an idea for you. Make a deal with him, well...more of a policy/rule. Take away any toy guns. Any other toy that he's going to pretend is a gun, it will be taken away. If you see him point his own finger/hand into a gun, you will take another toy that he likes away. Offer to take him to the toy store for a couple of new toys but the rule is that there would be no weapons or anything that resembles that sort of violence with the toy he chooses. Maybe he'll be interested in something new. Good luck.

This was a pretty easy one for us to address with our son. He is very interested in guns and shooting, as my dad (his grandfather) is a gun collector, competetive shooter, etc. Having learned to shoot early from Grandpa made for some interesting "gun play" until we realized that there was a magic way to control this. We pointed out that Grandpa ONLY shoots at targets (the paper kind that look like a bullseye). You can easily get some on eBay (search "paper targets"), or even draw some on paper and put those up. Teach little guy that you only, only aim at or shoot targets, never anything else (you can impose penalties if he aims at something or someone else, thus directly tying the punishment to the crime, so to speak). It stopped that "random aiming" business immediately for us.

Good luck -- HTH,
B.

I am so sorry. Turn off the tv. Try going tv free for one week and see if you notice the difference. Our culture is so totally immersed in violence that we (adults) do not even see it anymore...but the little ones see it and they just are trying to make sense of it through play.

Good luck,
Marianne

Deep breaths - four boys taught me this is TOTALLY normal. When we didn't give guns, they turned Barbies into guns - among other things. My husband (law enforcement) finally took them to the range, taught them gun safety and how to shoot, and why you should never shoot at people (Starting at about 8 years old) - now my 12 year old (oldest) has nothing but the utmost respect for guns, doesn't play ANY shooting games - even video, because "A Gun is a Weapon, not a Toy".

S.

Hi S.!
I am the mother of two boys, one is just turned 10 and one is 7. I think that over the years they have played guns and turned things into guns periodically. I always explained our families philosphy that we don't play with guns.. that guns are designed to hurt animals or humans and we dont believe in either one.
I would watch out for what they are watching.. it sometimes comes from that.
They will say "no mom.. its a blaster!" which is hilarious imo!
I dont balk at all if it is a psy-fi "blaster" which I know is kind of silly as a blaster and a gun are kind of the same thing!
They are boys and I think they *do* get super fascinated by this stuff. I would try not to shame, be very straight forward about how and why it spells trouble for your family and move on.
Lots of luck!

A.- mom to Dominic (10) and Julian (7)

S.,

My son is only 3 and is OBSESSED with guns and WWII and Vietnam, and Iraq.... It's crazy. I did teach him that he is NOT to point any kind of gun and anyone except for when we (me and him, or him and another family person playing with him) are playing together with them. I feel that as long as you teach him young that guns are bad and there is a reason for the orange tip on play guns they should be fine. My son also makes guns out of just about anything. A friend of ours even gave him a marshmallow gun.. so that is what he's allowed to play with outside. I say boys will be boys and let them use their imagination! As long as you teach them young, they will be ok!

I once read that our ancestors are hunters and boys are naturally inclined to play with weapons and rough house. I have a 3 year old and he makes guns out of legos and sticks. He has never watched any tv except educational stuff on PBS. I think this is natural. Our son is really active so we also try to get him involved in other active types of play. Good luck and don't worry!!

My sons that are 2 and 4 are pretty obsessed with them too...
I tell them they are for hunting and thats all
They can shoot at birds and squirels and pretend animals.
We try to teach them that guns are serious. Maybe if you can find a police officer to talk your son and explain that to him.
I know most policemen are pretty good about that stuff..
Good luck. I think alot of it is just BOY

Hi S.,

You have to find a policy that works for your family and one that you are comfortable with enforcing. I noticed that you take away his toys if he disobeys. I agree with this method, but I would get a trash bag and for every time he misuses the toy according to your rules he has to put the toy in the trash bag (not you) then you explain what he did, why he shouldn't do it and that his behavior will determine if he gets the toy back. This method will help him make the connection that if I don't follow the rules I have to put my toys in the trash bag and if my toys are in the trash bag I don't have as many toys to play with.
**Please remember to praise him if you notice that he is not using his toys as a gun.
Best wishes and keep us posted.
~T.

He is a boy. It is totally normal and totally ok. I suggest letting him spend the day with someone who hunts and/or uses guns int heir daily work such as a police officer. Set up targets and bulleyes all around your house and teach him to aim his "guns" at the red dots. Get him a gun that shoots those plastic sticky-dart-things and praise him when he hits the red dots.

Maybe you have the next Olympic Gold Medalist sharpshooter on your hands. Lighten up. Let him play. Just give him the ability to do so without being constantly in "trouble". :-)

A. <><

ETA - Rereading I see the trouble at school. So yeah - I think my advice is even more important than ever. Let him play with guns AT HOME. Enocurage it. Play with him. Buy yourself a gun. Make it a super-duper-fun-to-play-with-mommy-AT-HOME game and tell him that he can play "guns" anytime he wants AT HOME. Then he will have less desire to play at school where he is out from under the disapproving eye of his mother. *big grin* Make it more fun to play with you than without you and he won't want to play unless you're there.

My son always liked guns too but not obsessed with it. My kids play all the time with noisy guns and I had my son at a therapist once for sleeping in class and that therapist whispered to me that he and his brother always liked guns and it is normal. I know my sister was so upset these people let their son play with guns and he shot his sister and she lost an eye and they still let him. Sick. I would just keep telling him that is pretend and real guns hurt and when we play with them some people may think it is not pretend and real. He could get hurt. Good luck at least the I think they quit making the ones that look real. G. W

My 4yo boy is the same way. It seems there's not much you can do - they're all over the television and in the printed media, so they're always there, in your face. We have the same policy - we don't aim at people. The best thing you can do for him is to explain to him (if you haven't already), and if possible show him what guns can do. (Like shoot a squirrel or something.) Kids learn "hot" by getting burned. I'd hate for him to learn "die" by getting shot. All you can really do is teach him RESPECT for guns because the more we tell them they can't, the more they want to.

He's about the same age as my son and he's also been obsessed with guns. I think it's a normal boy thing. The difference in our house is that my husband is a competetive shooter and went to college on a shooting scholarship and was on the varsity shooting team. It can be a useful and rewarding obsession! We have taught our son about gun safety and this summer he got to shoot his BB gun, with Grandpa's guidance. He's only allowed to shoot at targets, but as he gets older he will also hunt with his dad and grandpa. We focus on the safety issues and never allow him to aim (even with toys) at us or other people, that's a major safety law that's he's already well aware of. Please don't think that he's prone to violence because of this. My husband has been around guns all his life and has hunted for most of it and he's the most non-violent person I know.

It is a total normal boy thing. I know, I have three boys and have been around many boys and know they can make a weapon out of anything. Don't get worried that he is going to become violent or anything because he does this. It needs to be a training moment, there is a time and place to do it and school is not it. You should let him do it at home, but let him know that he needs to not point it at anyone. He can go hunting if he has stuffed animals or I agree with the idea of having targets that he can pretend to shoot, it will take time to get him to have self-control with it, but just like with anything it does not help him to "try" to make him stop. You also should let him know that if he finds a gun even if it is at a friends house to take it to an adult and make sure that it is something he can play with. The answer is to train not take everything away that we think that they should not play with. There was a story that I have taken to heart that talked about the fairytale about the girl who had a curse on her and if she pricked her finger on a spinning wheel then she would fall into a deep sleep, and her father had all spinning wheels banned from the kingdom and then when she got older she stumbled onto one and pricked her finger. The thing is she had never seen one and didn't know not to touch it. Should her father instead teach her not to touch it or ban them and when she stumbled on them she didn't know what not to do. I think that that is what tends to happen now a days that we freak out and take it all away and when kids stumble on them they don't know what not to do with them. It is much harder to train them then it is to just take it away from them, but are we really teaching our kids that way.

My son was obsessed with toy guns and toy guitars when he was 2 1/2 . He would shoot at his half brother and his dad and they would very theatrically fall down and get back up and play again. This is normal! He also pretended that this little toy guitar only about 8 inches long was an electric guitar and play and make the sounds of what can only be described now as heavy metal (were talking 20 years ago before heavy metal was heavy metal! )any way he is 22 now, never got onto any trouble with a gun, even though i had a 357 in the house he never touched it. He had a bb gun at about 8 or 9. He is in the military and very respectful of others he serves in iraq. He is a gun collector and enthusiest and he did start a heavy metal band! He now only listens to christian heavy metal and plays airsoft with his friends when he gets a leave and comes home. Kids will be kids and boys will be boys and men will be men! After all when i was a little girl i loved to watch my mom put on makeup and perfume and get pretty, i still put it on myself everyday now. I'm not obsessed with it but i like to look pretty!

My daughter went through that stage at 3. Everything was a gun, and she even wanted us to pretend to be dead when she shot at us. The first couple of times, I kind of went along w/it b/c I didn't want to hamper her imagination, but I was uncomfortable with that and told her we won't play anything where we hurt other people and won't play "dead" at all. When she found some toy guns of my younger brother's from when he was a kid, the gun obsession got worse! Eventually, though, she just outgrew it. I talked to her about how we don't play with guns and that she should never shoot a gun unless she told an adult first. I think that restriction kind of put a damper on her gun play. We don't have any toy guns in our house, and she's now (at 4.5) to the point where other toys have taken over all her attention.

Why do you let him play with guns at all? Of course he's going to point them at people, that's what your supposed to do with them. You contradict yourself, first you say no one in your house owns guns, then you intimate that he as toy guns.
Also, what is he watching on TV that shows him the whole shooting process? You should closely monitor what he sees.
Sadly, a lot of accidental shootings (with kids) involves the kid thinking the gun is a "toy".
Personally, I was never given a toy gun as a kid, just real ones, and I plan to do the same for my two kids.

You know, a lot of people don't give kids the credit that they are smart people! Have you tried sitting him down and explaining what guns are capable of and how other people view how he acts with all of his "guns"?

Try the truth with him. I have always told my kids the truth and they are no worse for the wear. Just make it age appropriate. But remember - they are smarter than we realize!

Good luck with your little shooter! :)

With my first I said he would never have any guns to play with, but unfortunetly that was not the case. In one of my child devlopment classes I had an awesome teacher who had 5 children ranging from 2 to 17. She explained it like this: Even if the child has never seen a gun they will make one out of anything. She finally gave in a bought one of her first boys a play gun when he chewed a piece of bread into a gun.

I had the same experience for my both of my boys making guns out of everything. It is just normal boy pretend play. You just have to limit the gun play. Maybe a simple behavior reward chart will help him. When he acts up and goes against the rules give him an X or something similar on a chart, and when he listens to your intructions give him a sticker. Let him mark and put his rewards on his own chart, too. They love to do that. Make a plan that if he has too many x's then he gets something taken away for a certain period of time. When he has so many good rewards give him something good for his rewards. You can also go as far as taking away stickers from his chart when he is bad, and maybe have his teacher at school get involved and give her/him a booklet to also post stickers and x's. The most important thing is to be consistant. When you say you have done good give the sticker and when he has not listned follow through the first time. Making sure you also reward the good behavior will make him want to do it more. And by giving the x and taking things away and not paying much more attention to the bad behavior will help illminate it.

This simple chart is a basic form of behavior therapy, it can help out in any form of behavior. You can ask for suggestions from his psychologist on other simply behaior therapy techniques like these that you can use at home and also implement at school. you could also do a web search and find some interesting stuff.

YOu can also encourage his pretend play by letting him "shoot" at GI joes or stacks of blocks, etc. This lets him know when this behavior is apporiate. His chart will also inforce when the behavior is approriate.

Hope this helps.

Ok, this may sound awful, but it sounds pretty normal to me. Of course you may need to do something about controlling it at school, but that is just what some boys do. Why do you think that "cowboys and indians" was so popular with our husbands, fathers, grandfathers, etc, even before TV? For some reason, and who knows why, boys are facinated with this type of play. It does not mean there is ANYTHING wrong with him, nor does it mean he will grow up to be a gun enthusist. This is most likely a phase.

I know I'm not much help, but all I think you can do is just teach him that it's not appropriate to shoot at people. Like what the other mom said, get him some targets to shoot at. Basically give him gun training (tell him even adults have to get gun training) and keep on it like any other behavior until he understands the rules.

Good luck to you!!