Taps is playing in the background as I write this. The sound is coming from the TV in my bedroom as images of the Virginia Tech massacre are rehashed.
This is when the parenting stuff gets "sticky."
My son is 5 years old and is ALL boy. He loves running around the yard in pretend battles and is very imaginative when it comes to playtime. He can take any inanimate object and turn it into a weapon..sticks, shoes, etc...
Anal mommy that I am, I have always been uncomfortable with this because of the type of tragedies we experienced this week. Trying my best to balance letting him be a boy with an imagination with not wanting him to think it's OK to pretend to be shooting people...it's really a tough spot to be in.
On one hand, if I spend too much time harping on it, I know it will only make it seem that much more appealing. "Ooohhh, I'm not supposed to be doing this...." The perceived "wrongness" of it makes him only want to do it more.
I myself am a real dichotomy... while I am an artsy, creative "free" spirit who wants to let my child express himself and be uninhibited, there is another more guarded, apprehensive side of me that seems to always be looking down the road. Is everything he does now a glimpse of what he will be like as a teenager? Or, are these actions just the actions of a little boy pretending to be a soldier or a pirate or any other harmless figure?
I know I may be taking this all too seriously. But I struggle with how to raise my son to be a gentle, compassionate human being without squelching the wonderful "rough and tumble" kid that he is.
By the way, I am STILL waiting on that parenthood manual to arrive...you know, the one that tells you exactly how to handle issues like this.
Anybody got one I can borrow?
4 comments:
You and Keith have that manual right inside you -- no child of yours will ever be incapable of communicating or capable of menace. You model gentleness, compassion, creativty and wonder every day.
Hug Daniel for me. This week has left me craving some innocence.
Interestingly, many kids who turn into monsters as an adult. . .I mean the true monsters were not the rough and tumble type as children.
Instead they were meek, shy, and introverted. To name a notorious murder. . .Jeffrey Dahmer. His parents described him as quiet and shy and never demonstrated overtly any signs of being destructive or violent. To which we now know. . .he did these things when no one was looking and there was a reason he did them in private. He admitted to killing animals as a young child.
To some degree, the roughing and the tumbling that kids experience releases pent up energy and aggression in a safe and "normal" way.
It's the ones that are afraid or insecure, the ones that are unable to release the pent up energy or aggression, are the very people that later in life EXPLODE!
How often do we hear that the quiet accountant, the quiet student, the loner, the most unassuming individual went on a rampage and killed a whole bunch of people?
Case in point. . .the VA Tech massacre. . .the murderer was not the violent, aggressive, overtly macho person that we stereotypically believe to be capable of doing something so horrific. It was the quiet, introverted, shy loner. . .even his own roommates had no idea that he was the sort of person capable of doing what he did.
Sometimes it's what brews inside the mind of an individual in fantasy is far more dangerous than the one who overtly demonstrate it.
I'm a mother, as well, and what I look for in my son is the things that he don't overtly demonstrate. The things that he appear to keep inside. He tends to hold his anger, disappointment, sadness inside and that is what I worry most about. He rarely clues us in what he is feeling. . .his face may briefly show his true feelings but it quickly disappears but where to?
Let your son enjoy his overt playing as long as it is only that. . .playing. When he starts hiding it is when you should evaluate whether something is wrong.
Thank you for your insight--you're right...my son does express all of his emotions which I'm truly grateful for. I appreciate your post.
Katie,
Don't worry. Daniel is so normal. He is just a boy. They like guns, swords and knives. There was a study once done to determine what young children would do with different toys. They put a bunch of three year old boys in a room with only barbie dolls. They used them as swords and fought duels with each other. Its a guy thing.
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