I’m excited to be linking up with CoffeeDate, where you video yourself talking about what’s on your mind, as if you’re on a coffee date with a friend. So if you have one minute and fifteen seconds to laugh at my weird mannerisms on video, press play!
My boys are naturally drawn to shows of strength. They want to be the biggest-fastest-strongest, so it’s no surprise that they are intrigued by things that demonstrate those qualities, like combat helicopters and superheros. 🙂 But shows of strength often border on violent, and I want to preserve my boys’ innocence—while at the same time allowing them to “be normal” and to experience boyhood to the fullest.
So my question is—How do you let boys be boys while also teaching them what is appropriate in play?
Whether you have boys or girls or no kids at all, please share your opinions! I’ll post a follow-up soon about what we do and what we want to start doing, based on your ideas. If you know anyone who this post applies well to, please point them here, because my vision is for this discussion to become a useful resource for as many moms as possible. Who knows if this vision will be fulfilled, but I’m counting on y’all to help a girl out!
First, to get you thinking . . .
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Have you banned any words at home? If so, what ones? (kill, shoot, poop, etc.)
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Do you discourage any pretend games, like using weapons?
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How do you handle media, from shows (like Batman and Autobots) to video games?
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How else do you teach or model appropriate play?
Ready, go!
First of all, *love* that you did a video. You are absolutely beautiful and Quinn is precious! Speaking of boys… your house was mighty quiet during this video. 😉
About your question… I don’t know how much help I’ll be since I’m sort of dealing with the same things. I mean, when I was little, pretending to play “cops and robbers” and even saying things like, “hey, I’m gonna shot you”, while using my fingers to make my hand look like a gun, was no big deal. But today, we have so much going on around us that it is a little uncomfortable to have our sons pretend in this way.
But… they are boys and of course, they don’t mean anything by it. My personal take {mind you, I only have one son who is 4 years old, so again, not much experience – i.e. take this with a grain of salt}: let them be boys. Let them pretend to fight battles and win victories; just keep communication open and teach them about the realities of weapons and shooting in an age appropriate manner.
Interested in keeping up with this conversation. Will post to Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc to try and spread the word. Thanks for putting this question out there.
Thanks so much, Alana! Haha, the boys were having quiet time in their room when I recorded this, and yes, even I was surprised that I couldn’t hear them in the background on the video!
You said it so well, about everything going on in our country and about keeping communication lines open. What a balance it is for us parents.
Thank you a ton for sharing!
I don’t have much advice about the guns and gravitation towards the violent aspects of life that comes with boys. I have three and they are all the same way in that category. I grew up with all brothers and they were the similar as well. My brothers eventually “grew out of it” though, and are wonderful contributing members of society. I’m assuming the same will happen for my boys. It’s just a BOY thing, I think. We don’t promote violence, but we also don’t acknowledge and make a big deal out of it if they are making guns out of their leftover bread crusts.
As far as the “poop and pee” talk, our favorite way to deal with that is to allow only those “potty words” in the bathroom. That means if my 5 year old wants to stand in the bathroom and say “poop” 50 times in a row, he is allowed to do so. They may do that exact thing a few times, which is annoying, but the novelty does eventually wear off and my boys surprisingly follow this rule almost without exception. It’s an appropriate place for those words and it gives them an outlet to get all that potty talk out of their system. It’s all about the compromises. 🙂
Oh, Erica, you’re so CUTE! I don’t have much advise cuz Landen didn’t go through that so much (or maybe I just don’t recall!). But I really enjoyed getting to see my little niece (and you!) in action! 🙂
You are so beautiful, and kudos for having the courage to put up a video! I imagine it must be a little nerve wracking to put yourself out there so much when you usually have more control over what you publish since it is written. I also love how you have a baby on your shoulder the whole time. She looks good in red!
My two boys (almost 2 and almost 4) think it’s hilarious to use potty words. I don’t know whether to ignore it or to react to it and try to stop it because it is so pervasive. Once they get going, the laugh and say the words and laugh some more. They know it’s not ok to use those words, but it’s one of those battles that I choose not to pick when we’re at home. I don’t want to surpress everything for fear that it will become more desirable or they will wait to do it when I’m not there. So when we are out, I tell them to stop, but when we are in the car or at home, I ignore them unless they get out of hand.
Another thing I have a problem with is my four-year-old LOVES to wrestle. He’s been doing it with his dad since he was one and he likes to try to wrestle with family and adults a lot (including me) and they usually don’t like it or get hurt. It’s been difficult to try and teach him that wrestling is something he does just with his dad, but he has gotten better lately.
I let them play with any weapons they imagine/create but I do talk to my 4 year old a lot about how guns are not good and they are very dangerous and how they can hurt people. How it’s okay to pretend a stick is a gun or play with a squirt gun, but we do NOT touch real guns because an accident could happen and someone could get really hurt or die. (A gun accident is one of my worst fears as a mom.) I am not trying to scare him, just trying to be matter-of-fact. He seems to understand and will often say things to me that shows he has learned what I’ve taught him. When my second gets older, he will get the same talks.
We don’t have tv so I have a lot of control over what movies they watch. We actually do have a tv, but it is connected to our laptop, so they can watch pbs if they want to. I have a lot of control over what they watch, although when they go to cousin’s or friend’s houses they have seen other things that I wouldn’t approve of for them – but overall, they are pretty sensitive to media and I plan to keep it that way as long as possible. Also, the other day I played the skylanders video game with my sister-in-law, nephew and four-year-old and I really enjoyed it and thought it was age appropriate for my little guy.
I know that as they get older, it will be harder to filter what media they are exposed to; but I haven’t figured out what our stance as parents will be through each age. My husband is actually a lot more conservative about media than I am, and would prefer that they don’t watch movies or tv shows at all because he thinks they’re a waste of time. I know we’ll probably get a gaming system and video games when they are preteens/teens, just because I’d rather have them over at our house than someone else’s with their friends.
Thank you, Alison! Watching yourself on video is kind of painful! Oh well! And yeah, I thought having a baby on my shoulder the whole time definitely helped keep it real. 🙂 Glad you agreed!
I try to downplay the potty-word thing, too, for the exact same reasons. Mine did go through a little phase, but it seemed to have died down now. It’ll probably flare back up again at some point, but hopefully die quickly again. 🙂 Fingers crossed your phase passes quickly too! Also, Brittney had a great idea about letting them do all the potty talk they want to IN the bathroom. When they get going at home, you could just tell them to go have their little pow-wow in the bathroom. It may work better when they’re just a bit older, though. Not sure.
The wrestling. Oh my. We’re there too. What you’re doing sounds perfect, though, and it just takes some time before they get it. We tell our boys the same thing, too.
Media is super tricky. I’m still totally working on this one. More in my future post… 🙂
Thanks a million for posting, and have a great weekend!
I’m no expert, since I have a new 4 year old who still has issues here & there with BITING, and swatting at kids who try to take his stuff! But my oldest son (7) is much sweeter, yet still strong and tough, so I’d imagine some things we did ended up working.
I don’t let them talk about “Kill!” or “Die!” unless they’re actually talking about killing an animal when hunting, or killing a “Bad Guy”. I figure they can be ‘programmed’ into being soldiers or cops if it’s for defending our country someday (killing bad guys), but I absolutely cut them off if they’re playing swords/guns & they’re yelling to kill each other or kill their friends.
I only allow super toy-ish Nerf type guns; nothing that looks realistic at all. They can get into that if they want when they’re adults.
I do NOT allow violent video games. My oldest son found a website with free games once and started playing one for a few weeks that was a guy with a huge gun plowing everyone down. Even though it was super cartoonish (an old original Nintendo game), there was a very horrifying, obvious change in my son’s behavior. He became very angry, violently overreacted to little things, etc. I cut the game off and went back to PBSkids & Disney games ONLY- no other websites- and he dramatically improved and went back to being a sweet boy. It was undeniable. We don’t have any video game system aside from our internet devices/phones, and I don’t plan to unless they want to buy it themselves as teenagers.
We also don’t plan on ever getting cable TV. They really only watch PBS & I’d like to keep it that way. So luckily we don’t even have to deal with the ‘older kid’ cartoons that get more violent (Batman, Spiderman type stuff).
Other than that, it’s just important to play with them yourself often, so you can gently & constantly correct little mannerisms along the way so they know how to interact appropriately with others. If I have more ideas later, I’ll come back & write more! 🙂
Love these! Thanks so much, Carrie! I knew you’d have some great things to add! I like your attitude about letting them make their own decisions, within reason, of course, as they grow (like if they want to buy a gaming system when they’re older). And that is an amazing example about Sawyer and the online game! I did a bunch of research at BYU on gaming – I could have used this story for my report! haha
Thanks again, and congrats on that amazing house of yours!!!
Well, my boys aren’t really old enough yet so I’m sure I’ll change my thoughts in a the next couple of years.
Right now we encourage potty words! Our big guy is 3 and we’re trying to help him understand and know when he is going poo poo and pee pee and how we have to keep him clean. We’re not really for potty training yet but trying to get there.
He also likes to play with a nerf dart gun and squirt guns. He is not allowed to shoot at people or animals (that was the same rule my mom had). We do have guns in the house (which are kept in a safe) but he is taught that guns are tools, not toys. I think its just important to teach them right from the start so they are familiar with them and understand.
Hehe. Well were not there yet but im sure it will come up even if we have girls. Lol. Funny though emma was teaching sophia how to say things like “pa. Pa. Poop” and “fa.fa. fart” embarrassing but i just ask her not to and try to use distraction and not make too big a deal out of it since they looove the attention. The boys will have lots to teach their sister. Lol
First of all, it was SO good to see and hear you! It made me miss all our chats on the bus back in our pre-kid commuting days! You would get so excited about a recipe you were trying out or an idea you wanted to write about, and your enthusiasm was so contagious … you are one of my friends whose voice and mannerisms I miss most because it was just so fun to be around you!
Since you’re asking about boys being boys and my comfort level with violence, etc. as a parent, here are my thoughts: I’m hypersensitive about violence. I hate watching action shows with Grant because I can’t handle fighting, shooting, killing, blood, etc., so obviously that means I’m hypersensitive about my kids pretending to do those things. Grant has had to bring me down out of my idealistic cloud more than once to point out that even if we never buy our kids a toy gun, they will play with them at friends’ houses and turn anything they find around the house into a pretend weapon. He says he did it as a kid, and it’s just what boys do. So I’ve had to compromise a bit. We now have a toy light saber in our house, and it seems like action figures with weapons and books and shows with fighting scenes are multiplying around me. We have some ground rules, like no actually hitting anyone or anything with a weapon, and no saying things like “I’m going to kill you” (I don’t like the word “kill” at all). I’m okay with “getting the bad guys” and protecting the good guys, but I don’t like the actual acting out of killing someone. Does that make sense? I try to closely monitor what the boys watch, and have had to take away and stop allowing certain shows. That gets tricky when it was a gift or grandma or friends’ parents allow him to watch those things at their houses, but I try to explain my reasons so that my kids can understand there are just certain things we don’t watch, say, or do in our house. Hope that helps! Loved the comments that were shared. Great discussion.
Thanks so much, Monica, for your kind words! I wonder if I am as fun to talk to now, or if the years of parenting have zapped some of the energy out of me! haha Btw, we will be in Utah for ten days at the end of June if you happen to want to try to pull off a meet-up!
So, I am finding myself, like you, more and more sensitive to violent media, which is probably why I’m so concerned about it with my kids. I hope I can put together a decent game plan, because I’m kinda walking blindly right now! 🙂
Hey Erica! 🙂
Love this discussion idea! We hadn’t really had to deal with it much up until this year with C in kindergarten, but with other kids playing and saying things that I can’t control, there have definitely been some teaching moments!
Both boys did recently get the nerf guns for Christmas, which was not my favorite idea ever, but it has not been so bad. They have the dart ones that stick to the window, so they care more about target practice than the fighting thing. The first time one of them shoots another person whether accident or intentional, it’s gone for the day. They learn pretty quick!
As far as shooting/fighting bad guys goes, I think it’s hard to then really ethically explain what constitutes a bad guy versus someone who isn’t being nice… if that makes sense? Basically, they are allowed to pretend to shoot monsters but not people, even if they are robbers or whatever. A quick reminder to only shoot monsters and not people is usually all they need.
As far as banned words, we’ve never really had an issue with potty words, but we do have “unkind” words that we don’t allow- things like hate and stupid and dumb. We used to call them bad words, but have had a few (minor) questions about swear words so have since changed to talking about unkind words. It’s hard when those words come up in books and things. Stupid you can avoid all right, but hate seems to come up a lot even in childrens books. I substitute it for “really dislike” and they seem okay with that. 🙂
And wrestling! When I notice my little guys starting to “attackle” (attack and tackle? That’s what they call it) each other more than usual, that’s when I pay more attention to making sure they are spending more time outside and Daddy gets to take over for tickle/wrestling night. It seems like after that, they get it out of their system for a while. All that energy has to go somewhere!
Anyway, great discussions and cute video! You are adorable. 🙂
My oldest boy is only 2 1/2 and my other son is almost 10 months…so clearly new/little experience advice here, but here are some of my thoughts. I play a lot WITH them. I would be happy to play puzzles, animals, cars, trains until they are 18 if I could. However, already my oldest has learned about other play. He has a friend who loves teenage ninja turtles and so my boy has started pretending things are swords and starts to pretend fight. He also has friends who love batman and spiderman and will pretend to be those. Andrew has learned this mean expression and I find it very frustrating.
So, I’ve already had conversations with him. I teach him about heroes and I teach him to be one. I teach him about pretend. I finally decided to play pirates with him and games like “monster hunt” which he made up. We both had swords and I modeled what I expected…we never make contact (and I point this out frequently) and we keep it super friendly, taking time to laugh as we go. I just don’t like it so serious. I always encourage him and his friends to be sidekicks on the same team so they are never using their “weapons” on each other but rather on imaginary things. This has worked really well.
I have not allowed my boys to be introduced to any show that isn’t a toddler PBS or Disney Junior type show. And I have not bought them any toys that introduce superheroes or bad guys. I feel they are still so young and he has so much fun playing with fisher price little people and animals, why introduce him to those other things. He’ll get their sooner than I’d like already, I’m sure. I honestly think it will be a long time before they are allowed much more media than that. My goal is to develop such a lot of real play and learning that media isn’t even much a focus in our lives. I suppose we’ll see how that one goes. 🙂
I’ve enjoyed reading the advice others have had. Thanks for the discussion invite.
Okay, so I thought if one other thing. My son got into just going up to other children he didn’t know at the park or somewhere and would just growl at them. He was just playing with them, but obviously not so playful to the child he did it to. I would ask him about it and he’d say he is playing monsters. I’ve tried really hard to teach him that he has to ASK people FIRST if they want to play and if they don’t he needs to respect them and leave them alone and if they do go ahead, but smile and be friendly.
I don’t have anything to add really, since Owen is only 15 months, but I’m hoping to gain some knowledge from all you experienced mommas!
Loved the video clip! Good job!
Wow! So many of these comments are EXACTLY what my 3 year old does. He has never watched a Spider-Man or Batman show but has learned it from a friend. He always has a pretend gun shooting people- and he would make “mean expressions” too. He even goes up and growls at kids he doesn’t know at the park! Lately he has been saying “I’m going to kill you” and I try to teach him that we don’t say that. I think ill try implanting some of the ideas posted on here by other readers and see how that works out! Especially the potty talk ONLY in the bathroom. He is obsessed with called people “Poopy Diaper” Thanks Erica for writing about this do we can get ideas of what to do!! Oh our crazy boys!
P.S. Next discussion should be on kids arguing/fighting and appropriate consequences because we are totally needing that right now
That is brilliant! I felt like this discussion was so constructive and successful that I definitely want to do another, but I was needing some ideas for the topics, so thank you! Sibling fights are every mom’s downfall!
Love your video!! Hope you have a blessed week!!
Well, Erica, you obviously haven’t been around me much lately if you actually believe I even have a parenting “style.” But I suppose I do sort of have opinions on how my boy is raised. My son (now in Kinder) has mostly been shielded from lots of the violence in culture — actually, scripture stories were some of his first exposure to killing and murder (ack!). I would say that I actively encourage the type of play I am comfortable with and selectively ignore other stuff. We really encourage his interest in the natural world and he watches lots of nature documentaries — and I am OK with the kids acting out attacking and eating each other while role playing animals. I like that better than cowboys and indians and guns I guess, for whatever reason.
I am SUPER picky about the media my kids watch and the toys we own. We have military in our family, and he’s frequently given model army planes and toy soldiers which I just hide away until he’s older (I don’t want to explain why planes have bombs on them). We don’t own any guns, although I’m sure my husband would like to have some nerf ones. I feel like my “style” right now is to stave off the inevitable for as long as possible. My kids have very little exposure to commercials, watch mostly educational programming, Cars and Finding Nemo I think are the only movies they’ve seen. I think my nearly 6yo is still too young for the violence of superheroes and Star Wars. I’m actually not entirely sure how I will handle it all. I remind myself that we play killed each other all the time (in my house of mostly girls) and I defer to my husband a fair amount on these matters, and he certainly played as a typical boy.
We’ll see!
P.S. I don’t really care about poopy talk. None of my kids have been super obsessed with potty talk so it hasn’t been an issue. I have told them I don’t want to hear it at the breakfast/ dinner table.