Child's Play

I just lost this whole post and now have to write it again (grrrrr!!!) so please excuse me if it's not quite as eloquent as it could have been. 

An incident last week had me questioning the age appropriateness of play for children. My son came home from preschool slightly despondent because his friends didn't want to play his dinosaur game with him. When I asked him what they were playing he responded, "some silly shooting, killing people game."  I must admit I felt conflicting emotions at his words: proud that he thought such games were "silly" and sad that there are kids at his school who are playing such games.

May I remind you that my son is four and a half and in preschool!! I have to question, if these kids are role playing shooting and killing games at ages 4 and 5, what comes next? And also, do they really understand what it is that they are doing? Does it even matter if they don't? To me, it does. I don't want my child playing games or re-enacting things that they have seen that they don't understand or aren't developmentally ready for.

Hearing such stories really does concern the Captain and I, especially when we hear (and as teachers, see) the negative effects of our children growing up too quickly. All of these articles (and they are just a small snippet of what's available online on the subject) are quick to blame someone/something for the fast rate of children 'growing up': capitalism, sexualisation, parents, childcare, technology, fashion and more. But only the Growing Faith one offers a solution. Trust those "conservative Christians" to want to protect our children! Whether or not you are Christian, or proscribe to any religion or faith, the tips of helping our children (and by 'our' I mean both society's and our own) are helpful and appropriate.

Firstly, contacting politicians on issues of concern regarding marketing and advertising, indeed anything that has to do with children, can show the government that this is something we care about. Secondly, you can try and implement some changes within your own household. For example, controlling technology and television exposure, communicating with them about what's acceptable and what isn't and modelling the values and behaviour (both parents, if there are two in the family) of the kind of person you want your child to be. Sounds fairly common sensical to me.

So why are our children still being forced out of childhood so fast? I won't say "growing up" because I don't believe they are growing up. I believe they are being pushed ahead of their behavioural and developmental levels before their time. One article talks about "pester pressure." That is, when parents finally buckle in and allow their child to have that inappropriate toy/watch that inappropriate show or movie/go to that party/stay out later than normal - insert whichever concern here - because their children pester them until they say yes.

I remember when I was teenager trying this method. I had no success whatsoever. I remember begging, pleading, arguing, yelling, trying all of the usual tactics but to no avail. I swore that I would never be so strict with my own children :) Ah, the ironic sense of humour of time.

But are we, as parents, too busy and tired to fight for the things that we want for children and give in to their requests simply to keep the peace? Some would suggest so. Personally I find this a poor excuse. If a long, healthy, normal childhood is what you really want for your child (and honestly, who doesn't?) then why shouldn't we fight for it? Even at the risk of not being our child's friend? Believe me, I hardly ever considered my parents 'friends' when I was growing up, but they stood by their beliefs and punished me when I rebelled (ha!!) and continued to lay down the rules.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand...I did some research on age appropriate play and came across two useful sites. One was from Illinois, the other from the ACT. For preschoolers appropriate play includes: imaginative and pretend play (including role play), outdoor play with bikes, toys (trucks, sandpits, balls, scooters, bubbles etc; interactive games such as Simon Says, Follow the Leader and What's the Time Mr Wolf; indoor activities such as craft, drawing with pencils and crayons, scissors, reading books, singing and dancing, puppet shows and dress ups. Neither one mentioned shoot-em-up games, and although I will concede that this is a form of role-play I have to question where or what they have to make them want to re-enact such games.

Which leads us to the question of television and movies. Don't get me wrong, we love watching movies in our house. But the Captain and I are very careful about what gets screened. Toy Story 2 was okay, but not Toy Story1 (who wants that nasty bully influencing their kids??), Cars the movie is okay but Cars 2 seemed a bit too mature for our boy. Most recommendations also limit the amount of screen time (both tv and computer) to 1-2 hours a day for a four year old. In our house we definitely comply with this.It's all about censorship, I suppose, and in this world of liberalism and free-thinking censorship isn't very trendy. Even the word sounds horrible and conjures images of blackened out letters from the Second World War and dictator-run countries. It’s even harder for parents who are struggling to do the best they can without their children hating them :). But I guess it just goes to show that this is a pretty tough job these days, being a parent. Even for parents. But then, we didn't sign up for this gig just to be trendy :)

And I have to say I am glad that our son would rather despair overthe other kids than join in with their shooting/killing games. It makes me feel like we're on the right track with this whole business that is parenthood. And we will continue to encourage his delight in dinosaurs and trucks (just as we encouraged his obsession with trains and cars not long ago) for as long as possible. I know that he will, at some point, want to play the shooting game (what little boy doesn't??) but I can only hope it will be when he is ready to understand what he is doing and will only make up a small component of his play rather than being his whole focus.

And we will continue to play with him so he knows, and we know, that it can be fun to play age appropriate games and that more can be gotten from them, especially in terms of development, than trying to strive for games he doesn’t understand.

This is also a nice time to have a chat with him and learn from these sorts of experiences. In this case we can talk about the importance of human life and how it’s not nice to shoot people because really, we don’t want to hurt anyone. Also, that everyone is different and if he would rather play dinosaurs then that it simply part of what makes him special.

So tell me what do you think? Is this something that concerns you? Do you think I'm being overdramatic? Let me know where you stand.

Oh, and please excuse the rant. It's not often that I get on my soapbox but when I do you know it's something important to me :)