Responsible Parenting: "Playing Guns?"

[sawdust]

.... I played superman but never jumped off the barn thinking I could fly.

Well, I played Superman, jumping off of the garage roof with a towel tied around my neck. My first lessons in gravity and the falseness of TV. I tried it again with the towel acting as a parachute. I learned another lesson: sprained ankles hurt.

I also sat on an upside-down lawn chair, using the extended legs as joysticks. Unfortunately, that didn't make me a fighter pilot later in life.

OMG!!!!! I think I knew you. We used to be able to talk you into anything! Remember that time we talked you into eating that bug??? I still think the only reason your superman cape didn't work is that it was the wrong color. Wow... those were that days!

Maybe we did know each other. But I only ate half of the bug.
And it was a red cape, er, towel.

Was it you that I talked into holding a lit firecracker and letting it explode in your hands to see if it hurt?

I have come to the conclusion that 73.4% of one's "intelligence" is derived from experience.

[AustinBoy]

I'm 38 and when I was in the 8th grade, if we got our parents permission, we were allowed to make a real crossbow as a shop class project!!
Still have it up in the attic! Made it out of Purple Heart. (Round Rock ISD if you are curious)

Imagine an 8th grader with a crossbow in school today. Would probably be prosecuted as an adult and charged with a felony.

Ty

[03Lightningrocks]

.... I played superman but never jumped off the barn thinking I could fly.

Well, I played Superman, jumping off of the garage roof with a towel tied around my neck. My first lessons in gravity and the falseness of TV. I tried it again with the towel acting as a parachute. I learned another lesson: sprained ankles hurt.

I also sat on an upside-down lawn chair, using the extended legs as joysticks. Unfortunately, that didn't make me a fighter pilot later in life.

OMG!!!!! I think I knew you. We used to be able to talk you into anything! Remember that time we talked you into eating that bug??? I still think the only reason your superman cape didn't work is that it was the wrong color. Wow... those were that days!

Maybe we did know each other. But I only ate half of the bug.
And it was a red cape, er, towel.

Was it you that I talked into holding a lit firecracker and letting it explode in your hands to see if it hurt?

I have come to the conclusion that 73.4% of one's "intelligence" is derived from experience.

LOL...my brother actually did that on a dare. yes... he said it hurt.

[mctowalot]

So what do/did/will you tell a child when they ask what a gun is for?
I explained to mine that the bullet comes out of the barrel very, very fast, and that it could knock over a can, (he was 3 years old and watching me shoot a pellet gun) and put a hole into whatever it hit.
I explained that target shooting was for fun and equated it to seeing if you could throw a ball and hit the can, except the gun "threw" the bullet a lot faster and harder. I made sure he understood that it could put a hole in a person too and it would hurt really bad (we haven't talked about death yet) and that's why we never point a gun at anything we don't want to put a hole in.
Someone on the forum posted a link to "The Cornered Cat" which had some great pointers on kids and guns, but I don't recall seeing any ideas on how to answer the question above.

[Dragonfighter]

Only you can decide when this is appropriate but they need to know sooner than later that:

1) There is no do-over, you pull the trigger and it's gone, done. Whatever destruction that results can not be undone. It made it home to my girls when a friend of mine's daughter (someone they had met and liked) accidentally blew half her head off. They were playing with her at Six Flags one day and a week later she was dead. They were young.

2) That a gun is a tool that is capable of inflicting death but it is a tool that protects and feeds when used properly. I found out pretty quick that sitting down with the girls while I was cleaning and talking to them about the whys and wherefores of what a gun is and why we carry; that questions at inopportune times are less likely to crop up. A child has an uncanny ability to stew on a thought and then pick up the conversation amongst friends or at church.

[AustinBoy]

I am not a parent yet but through my own life experiences I believe that exposure is the best deterent.

If you take the curiousity out of it, it becomes normal and routine. IE: not fun.

My Grandma used to have a .25 wrapped in a handkerchief in her nightstand.
When we very young she would let us see it and hold it anytime we wanted.
She always told us that if we ever wanted to see it, just ask. She would stop whatever it was she was doing and immediately take us to see it.
She also told us that if we ever touched it without asking, she would tan our hides ten ways to Sunday and promised that we wouldnt be able to sit for a week.
She meant it. We knew it.

The fact that we could see it anytime that wanted meant that we never really wanted to see it. It was no big deal.

Tell a child they cant and that will be the only thing they want to do.

Shelter a child from "insert anything" and that will be want they want to do the second you are not around.

My 2 cents.
Ty

[TLE2]

(My grandma used a peach switch that I had to go cut!)

There was a link here, if I remember correctly, to a site about women and their daughters, and how to teach them about guns. It was along the same lines as AustinBoy said. When my grandson asks if he can see my gun or guns, the answer is yes. I take great pains in unloading it, cocking the slide or bolt back, checking the chamber with a pinkie, etc. I also tell him incessantly about pointing it in a safe direction. (He likes it when I load snap caps and let him pull the trigger, so he has to point in a safe direction, of course. Which is one reason my nightstand gun doesn't have one in the chamber: he can't yet pull the slide back.)

Secrecy leads to curiosity. Familiarity leads to understanding.