Four years ago, I wrote a column on the controversy over boys and toy guns. In my column today in USA Today I return to the issue to discuss some recent research in the area.
Four years ago, I was publicly identified as a danger to children. As the doting father of four, it was a bit of a surprise, but my “outing” occurred after my boys and I built an authentic Conestoga wagon to ride in our Northern Virginia neighborhood’s “Wheel Day.” Mid-parade, an irate mother confronted me after spotting toy guns in the covered wagon — objecting to my instilling violent values in my boys. I later received an e-mail from another parent that this covered wagon was no “innocent fantasy” since I must be aware “what guns were used for in the Old West?” It turns out that my kids were apparently rehearsing the genocidal massacre of Native Americans.
Truth be known, I actually did not view the wagon as a tribute to ethnic cleansing. But the real issue was not Western fantasies or phobias. It was guns.
I let my boys play with toy guns and swords. With many parents and schools enforcing a zero-tolerance policies toward toy guns, such toys are producing an increasing divide on playgrounds and play dates.
Early this year, a 7-year-old in Oklahoma City was suspended from school for pointing his finger like a gun and shooting at a wall. He is not the first “finger-gun” suspension — part of zero-tolerance policy in schools that recently have led to the suspension of kids for everything from drawing stick figures with guns to wearing a hat with an image of an armed soldier on it. In December, Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch organized an annual “bashing” of toy guns at which parents bring their children to destroy toy guns in exchange for non-violent toys such as puzzles. In January, Hawaii legislators sought, but ultimately failed, to make it a crime to sell a toy gun to anyone younger than 18. While the crackdown on toy guns has continued to grow, this debate has been remarkably detached from developmental studies and seems to be more about parents than their kids.
Toys and gender
As someone on the nature side of this debate, a new study in Current Biology magazine caught my eye. After 14 years of observing young chimpanzees in Uganda, leading researchers found that they shared the same innate preferences in toys and games as human children. Males and females were found to gravitate toward what are called “biological predilections” in toys. The researchers found that females tended to treat sticks like dolls to mimic their mothers while males used sticks as weapons. Most interesting, when Richard Wrangham of Harvard University and co-author Sonya Kahlenberg of Bates College gave juvenile monkeys sex-stereotyped human toys, the females tended to play with the dolls while the males are more apt to play with “boys’ toys,” such as trucks.
Joyce Benenson, associate professor of psychology at Emmanuel College, told Discovery News that this study reinforces her own research that “biological mechanisms (underlie) children’s toy preferences” and “suggests … a biological basis for human sex differences.”
Of course, who needs a Uganda chimp research center? I had Madie. Surrounded by brothers (now 12, 10 and 8), Madie (now 5) grew up in a house overflowing with boys and boy toys. Madie is certainly competent with every model of Nerf weapon. However, she primarily maintains a legion of dolls with enough clothes to outfit an Army division.
Psychologist and author Glen David Skoler has argued that games involving toy guns and swords most often occur as boys are transitioning from the “amoral, self-centered, and unsocialized” world of toddlers. He calls this an “intermediary level of moral functioning,” where boys experiment with “games of good guys vs. bad guys and epic struggles between good and evil.” Child psychologist Penny Holland reached the same conclusion in her book We Don’t Play with Guns Here, saying that toy gun play is often “part of … timeless themes of the struggle between good and evil.”
Potsdam vs. pirates
In truth, my kids are not obsessed with guns and show no signs of being nascent Hannibal Lecters graduating to higher and higher forms of carnage. Ironically, I grew up in a zero-tolerance household, where my mother destroyed any toy guns that she found. We became obsessed with secretly hiding squirt guns around the house like adolescent drug users.
What is astonishing to me is how detached the zero-tolerance movement is not just from research but also from reality. One Mothering magazine article advised mothers on how to respond to their boys found playing with guns or swords. The writer suggested that parents take their boys aside and “emphasize healing” and show their boys how to make “magical medicines.” The magazine also advised that parents could also “transform guns into magical wands” and “channel energy into other games.” My personal favorite, however, was that parents should stop such games and have the kids play “peacemaking” by creating “a roundtable with a mediator and write a peace accord.”
Perhaps Secretary of State Hillary Clinton could pull off the peace accord game, but I doubt that most kids would find re-enacting the Potsdam Conference of World War II to be a good substitute for a pirate war.
Toy guns are no more the cause of violence than toy kitchen sets are the cause of obesity. Hundreds of millions of men grew up with toy guns and never turned to a life of spasmodic violence. On this issue, kids seem a lot more sophisticated than their parents. They know it’s just a game.
Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, is a member of USA TODAY’s Board of Contributors.
March 8, 2011
I love guns
KV,
Hey, you’re the one who brought up the study. I guess I don’t see why you would do that if you thought it wasn’t valid. But hey, I’m fine with discounting it.
So, what evidence do you have that your opinion is correct? If you’re left with nothing but some stories you’ve heard, that’s fine. We all have to base our opinions on something. I was just hoping you had some solid evidence to back up your claim.
CE,
“if your friend is looking for resources, Tony Attwood has a lot of great strategies, as does the Geneva Centre ( Canadian site )”
I will certainly pass this info on to her – many thanks!
“All the best :)”
Right back at ya 😀
Hi there AY, how are things?
BTW I love Louisiana Lobsters, although I hear they can pinch pretty hard if you don’t handle them the right way….tlc.
Stamford Liberal….
I am indeed very proud, he’s a wonderful kid and while I’m somewhat biased I hear the same from all who know him. My personal belief is that your friend is on the right track. I will admit that my educational backgroud is Behavioural Psychology and I’ve worked for many years in the field of Mental Health. That being said, at the time that my son was dx’d I had never heard of Aspergers Syndrome, and pictured ” Rain Man ” when thinking of Autism, and honestly, the school system knew less than I did!
In the past 10 years I’ve become a bit of an expert on the subject and the ” go-to ” person at work. I’ve developed and facilitate ” social skills ” groups for adults on the spectrum. Research and instinct are key, if your friend is looking for resources, Tony Attwood has a lot of great strategies, as does the Geneva Centre ( Canadian site ).
All the best 🙂
Hey now….CE….be careful…..you don’t know what those folks in the swap waters bring….they eat Louisiana Lobsters….be careful…..or you may Rue the day….or is that Rouge the day…but in the future Roving Ambassadors case it may be Rogue….
CE,
“Kudos to your friend. My son was diagnosed at the age of 4 with ” Moderate Functioning ” Autism…..at 5 with ” PDD-NOS ” and finally at 5 1/2 with ” Aspergers Syndrome “. The battles that I fought at the Elementary School level with many teachers and Administrators, who qualified themselves as the experts, were unsurmoutable. I chose to treat/raise my son in exactly the same manner that I treat & raise his ” Typical ” brother. My son is now 15 years old, earning A’s in High School, and making friends.”
While I personally haven’t had to fight the teachers, my friend as told me about the battles she has had, and continues to have. But, she is doing exactly what you have done with your son and she is beginning to see real results. He is relying less and less on sign language and is making remarkable efforts in verbalizing.
Thank you for sharing, and I’m glad your son has progressed as well as he has – you must be so proud!
BIL…..
Lucky for you the maple/sap is ready to be tapped anyday now!
CE,
Keep the poutine warm and the beer cold.
I’ll be there as fast as I can and ready to sample all of Canada’s maple-y goodness.
” I’ve been with this child and he has never acted out at anyone in his presence. He is bright, he gets it, so we don’t talk to him or guide him as if he doesn’t. His mannerisms and body language convey he knows exactly what is going on around him, he is just unable to fully express himself verbally ”
….Stamford Liberal
Kudos to your friend. My son was diagnosed at the age of 4 with ” Moderate Functioning ” Autism…..at 5 with ” PDD-NOS ” and finally at 5 1/2 with ” Aspergers Syndrome “. The battles that I fought at the Elementary School level with many teachers and Administrators, who qualified themselves as the experts, were unsurmoutable. I chose to treat/raise my son in exactly the same manner that I treat & raise his ” Typical ” brother. My son is now 15 years old, earning A’s in High School, and making friends.
….and btw, never had any inclination to play with guns, or any other ” boy ” toys.
BIL…
You know that Canada will always let you in 🙂
“I was 5 and he was 6
We rode on horses made of sticks
He wore black and I wore white
He would always win the fight
Bang bang, you shot me down.
Bang bang, I hit the ground.
Bang bang,that awful sound.
Bang bang, my baby shot me down.”
When I was about five, my favorite toy was a little black “Rambo” gun (that I now know looked like a 1911 .45) that when you pulled the trigger, it would pull back the hammer and make plastic snapping sound. It was my favorite toy, but my mother did not approve. After some kid got shot in LA for pointing a toy gun at a cop (something I was taught never to do was point my toy guns at people) she said “No more war toys!” and she took away any toys which looked like they bore a resemblance to any toy weapons, a considerable number, as you can well imagine. I was the only kid I knew who didn’t have ANY GI Joes.
When I was Eight, I found my Rambo gun hidden in a vase on top of the entertainment center (which I daringly climbed like a mountain climber, searching for the lost city of Machu Picchu) and I proceeded to play with it. I was soon caught with it, and in retaliation, she smashed it into a million pieces in front of me. My response? I didn’t speak to her for two weeks. She took me to a doctor because she thought I had gone mute. I soon started stealing her cigarette lighters in retaliation. I amassed a large coffee can full of lighters and buried it in the back yard.
Well, fast forward a few years. After serving in the US Marines including a tour of duty in Iraq, I got out of the Corps, and got a job working for a gun company. I’m now in school full time and will hopefully be able to get a degree in Mechanical Engineering, so that I can become a firearms designer. But I’m sure that these smash-ins will totally work.
P.S. Check out my user name!
Totally in agreement with you here. I have one boy and one girl; anyone who tells me that it is access to the toy gun that brings out carnal instincts obviously doesn’t have children — or at least one boy.
Buddha…..
I would love to be the roving ambassador….but no….I have to be surround by a kitchen cabinet full of females…. Maybe, you should have the opportunity……I hear Jefferson did a bang up job being ambassador….Thank goodness the medical treatments are much more readily available…
Blouise,
I am curious as to why you’d want to keep me out of the country?
Unless it is of course the obvious answer which is to resist temptation. 🙂
UPBill,
If you are correct…then you have not met my sister…. If you want verification that you are incorrect I’d give you here number….But then she might just kill the both of us…so its best I don’t…
Its interesting how toy guns are quickly taken to the stage of real guns. And at the same time the toy gun is combined to statistics of killed children.
This is like taking a go cart to the danger of high speed car driving. Its two different topics. But yeah as a gun looks like a gun and the one makes bang and the other too throw it all together.
While army is protecting you country and who would complain a policeman arresting a criminal as well with a gun.
Yeah, all the children with a toy gun are little criminals too, isn’t it?
Seems like kids can see the difference between toys an reality much better than some grown ups.
Guns are not only offensive weapons, they are as well protection. Keeping kids from toy guns is like denying the realty.
Any parent who has both daughters and sons can tell you that they are very different. Boys are wired for conflict. Girls are wired for cooperation. Why this is suddenly news I don’t know, but trying to get boys to act like girls is counter-productive.
As far as this whole gun control debate goes, when someone shows me that removing guns from a society improves public safety, I’ll change my mind about it. Note I’m not talking about “gun violence” because I don’t consider violence committed with a gun any more horrifying that violence committed with any other weapon. This is where the Brady Bunch, and the VPC have lost the debate. They seem to believe that if you could remove the tool, the violence wouldn’t happen. This is demonstrably false as you can see from the drop in gun violence in the UK after their near-total ban on guns and self-defense, yet their violent crime rate has done nothing but climb. We see the same in Australia.
An dead woman who was unamred is not morally superior to one who is alive because she killed the man who was going to rape her. In my view I’d much rather the woman be alive and the person who committed the crime was dead.