This Is Why We Should Let Little Boys Engage in 'Gunplay'

In an article for parenting site Scary Mommy, Katie J. describes her horror at her 3-year-old son’s interest in pretending about guns. Katie says her “heart sank” when her son Henry started turning things — “hands, water-guns, pieces of paper, train set tracks and most often, sticks” — into, as Henry calls them, “shoot guns.” Henry likes to pretend he’s using his “shoot gun” to shoot dragons — a fact which Katie says brings her near tears. Katie cites gun violence statistics and the fact that “school shootings are so common now” as her reasons for wanting to ban gunplay in her house. But, based on Katie’s description of the sorts of play her son is engaged in, it sounds much more like Henry will grow up to be the kind of person who stops a school shooter than the kind of person who becomes one.

Katie is conflating her son’s interest in guns with an interest in committing random acts of violence. But it’s much more likely that he is learning to identify with the kind of bravery and protective instincts of knights (who fight dragons, just like Henry) or superheroes. Toronto-based psychologist Joanne Cummings says that playing superheroes, for example, is “a way of identifying with someone who’s brave, who doesn’t shy away from danger—someone who has these wonderful talents and attributes used for good in the world.” In other words, someone who would protectinnocent people from violence, not perpetrate it himself.

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