Question for a friend...

[live_momma]

earthmoon and alunatic, this one's especially for you, although others should also feel free to respond. :-)

A real life friend of mine is struggling with The Gun issue, and I told her you all would have the answers! She has a 5 year old son who is in that "Everything I Touch Becomes a Gun" phase. Guns make her extremely uncomfortable, and this is exacerbated by the fact that he seems totally unable to follow any "reasonable boundaries" when it comes to gun play (e.g., not "shooting" his sister, or not pointing them at people). She thought that the solution to this problem was simply to ban all gun play outright. This has worked about as well as you'd expect. Additionally, the child has become extremely logical in his arguments: "Mo-om, they're just pretend!" "It's a macaroni noodle, not a real gun. *eye roll*" which I find extremely amusing; she not so much.

My friend is frustrated with the fact that he can't follow her simple restrictions on gun play, which is why she felt it necessary to ban it totally to begin with. Beyond that, I think she fears that even if she did want to back track on that rule, she's made such a big deal out of it that changing the rule now would cause even more problems, but if nothing's changed with him, how could she do that anyway? Advice?

I've found many times that writing my problems out to ask for advice makes the solution clear to me.

1. If you make a bad decision or even an OK decision, but change your mind later, that's ok. Our children learn by example. It's ok to say, "Child, after much thought, research, discussion, etc, I've decided to change the rule." When our children see us admit to making a mistake and doing our best to rectify it, it shows them how to handle their own mistakes. When they see that we realize that something isn't working and that we care enough about them to try something else to make it work, that's a good thing. When we show them that we're willing to seriously consider changing our minds because something is important to them--even if the end result is that we stick to our (metaphorical) guns--we free them to come to us in the future when something is important to them, instead of simply sneaking around behind our backs (not-that-we'd-know-anything-about-that).
2. There are other ways to set the boundaries. Simply because "no pointing guns at real people" has worked in other families doesn't make it the right rule for you. Your rule could be something like, "You need to play guns in a different room," or something else entirely.
3. There are other ways to enforce the rules, beyond categorical banning of all guns and gun-like objects forever more.
• Redirection is one of those tools we use a ton with our 9 month olds and then promptly forget about as soon as our kids are capable of understanding the word "No!" "Don't shoot your sister!" can be much more effective when stated as "Your sister is a good guy! She's on your team," or, "Shoot the pretend bad guys!" or, "You need to take that toy in another room if you're using it as a gun."
• Time-outs don't have to be "You sit in the corner for X minutes and think about what you did wrong!" I've had great success with a self-regulated "Go sit on your bed until you're ready to play without hurting your sister." It doesn't matter if he goes in there and listens to an audiobook or plays with toys. The point isn't to "make him sorry." It's simply an opportunity for him to regain control. Note: some kids prefer to do this with an adult, which can be annoying when you're trying to accomplish something, but can still be extremely effective.
• Put the offending toy in "time-out"--and then give it back! If it causes problems two or three times in a row, you should probably put it away for the rest of the day/week. And, if you're already on your last nerve, you can warn him ahead of time that he only gets one chance today. It's also good to remind him that he can "try again" later/tomorrow. As with the "positive time-out", you may find that he can let you know on his own when he's feeling better able to follow the rules.
• I had a fourth sub point, but hell if I can remember what it was. I do so love the logic and flow of the outline format, though. *geek sigh*
4. The video I started to recommend today is still a good one. It's Raising Cain, a PBS documentary based on a book by the same name. Netflix has it. Only the first half is relevant. The 2nd half deals with high school students, and I didn't find it at all applicable to younger kids or homeschoolers in general. We (*cough* I!) really need to make time for M- to come over and play Boy Games with R-. If your husbad (*giggle* I swear that was a typo. I left if in for your amusement.)... *ehem* If your husband could make a deliberate effort to spend some time play fighting (wrestling, sword fighting, or whatever) with him a couple of times a week, that would be helpful, too. If he has other outlets, M- won't need to play guns quite as much.

So, yeah. There it is. Hopefully, the others will chime in with their much more brilliant advice.