I sat down with them and pressed my case that playing with pretend guns was ok, as long as we didn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. I also said that they were not to touch real guns ever. That real guns were very dangerous and only adults that knew proper gun safety could use guns. Since we are in an area where hunting still provides food for many of our friends, I needed them to know the difference between play and real.

I find after that talk I found that yes they still play with “guns” but now they hunt for food vs. killing zombies and thats ok with me.

This is what I did — when my current 8 year old was then four and suddenly everything was a gun — I don’t even know where he got the idea from. He didn’t go to preschool, our *only* clear channel was PBS, he only had trains and Bob the Builder toys, and his only playmates were his girl cousins — but suddenly one day everything was a “gun”. Stick? No! Gun! Train track? No! Gun! And on and on. I didn’t make a big deal of it. Sometimes I would “die” dramatically, and he’d think that was hilarious. Mommy is the height of comedy! Sometimes I’d tell him to put it away and go do something else for a while. And after a few months the fascination wore off. He didn’t understand, of course, that in the real world, guns are dangerous, violent, and destructive, and there was no reason for me to give him that fear, or for me to instruct him that guns hurt people and it’s a bad game. Not when he was just four. My biggest concern was that he didn’t poke anyone’s eye out with the “gun”. Nowadays he is seriously into the Harry Potter books and is forever leading his little brother into magical duels. To a certain extent, boys *will* be boys. They are the way they are because they are wired differently than girls. It’s really what makes raising them so wonderful.

Uh, have him watch Michael Moore’s documentary in hopes he grasps the concept and then pat yourself on the back? No?

I’m out.

Good luck though. This parenting gig sure isn’t easy.

Anyway, I do admire your way of coping and your positive outlook – I love the last paragraph of your post about the ‘new normal’. I love the way it is bringing you closer together.

I do hope something shows up soon.

As an aside, my son says weirdly mean things to me when he gets upset (like when he’s being reprimanded or punished) and I probably shouldn’t laugh, but he looks so darn cute with his little pouty face that I can’t help it. I’m not sure where he gets these little sayings but I’m hoping it’s just an odd phase of experimentation as well.

But it makes him happy, and I like to see him happy, so I oblige in playing with him with his cars and watching train videos.

Sorry, I don’t have any advice for how to deal with your son’s recent interest in guns, but you definitely have my sympathy.

And oh.. oh, how I love Alan Rickman. That voice.

Great answers, thanks for doing this! Off to my random picker now…