by Priya Kamath

Created on: March 01, 2009   Last Updated: February 16, 2012

I strongly feel that it is inappropriate to allow children to play with toy weapons of any kind because of the message we send to our children when we permit it. I am a mother of two boys; as a parent I have realized that kids, as impressionable as they are, pick up values form the rules and boundaries we set for them. As children, their views are largely influenced by our responses to issues and the implications of our decisions. This influence cannot be underestimated.

It is hard to pretend to use weapons for anything other than to hurt and harm. As such, allowing children to play with weapons, albeit toys, could possibly promote a nonchalant attitude towards violence. It could make children less sensitive to the pain inflicted by violence, and eventually desensitize them to it. Allowing children to play with toy weapons need not necessarily encourage violence or criminal attitude. However, it could be perceived by children as approval by parents. This in turn would make violence acceptable in their innocent, young minds.

Some studies have shown that playing with toy weapons actually encourages aggressive behavior in children. Along the same line of thought, for well adjusted, stable children, playing with toy weapons might not be an issue. However, for disturbed children who are unable to differentiate between the real and imaginary worlds, fascination for toy weapons could easily be passed on to real weapons. They might be unable to understand the difference between real violence and game playing, and see violent solutions as an alternative to their problems. Something as innocent as playing with toy weapons could perpetuate and encourage undesirable tendencies and behavior in the child.

Toy weapons of every kind are propagating in the market every day. However, there is also a wide spectrum of toys available that encourage creativity and imagination, and offer hours of enjoyment. Since weapons symbolize aggression, any kind of thematic play with toy weapons, although on occasions seemingly constructive, does involve violence. Toy weapons, thus, in a sense limit a child's imagination.

There has been an indisputable escalation of violence in recent times, and in several cases it is children who go on bloody rampages causing unimaginable carnage. Children learn from their observations of the world around them. Everything nowadays, from news to movies to video games sadly has an element of violence in it. Some even communicate that violence is power. While this may all be true, it is also true that for children their family is a microcosm of the world around them. Consequently, decisions made by parents have a more significant impact in molding their childhood experiences which in turn help them navigate their adult life.

If we, as parents, could eliminate one little factor from our children's lives that could possibly influence them negatively, shouldn't we make a responsible decision about it?

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