My kids have gotten into super heroes. Yes. I have no idea how it happened. I did not promote it. But they have caught the bug and there is no going back. I cannot say that I have a problem with the idea itself. I mean, having "superman" and "bat girl" running around the house chasing bad guys is as fun as playing "house" or any other imaginary game. And my "spider woman" and "iron man" are very creative dressers! (see the picture!) At times the creativity even goes further as in playing imaginary superheroes. Last night Kaspar was "shiny-man" with a list of super powers that never ended, including all the super powers of all super-heroes know and recognized by a 5 year old. It's hard to keep up with the two of them and their games!However, I have a beef with the violence it promotes. All that comes with the territory super-heroes is in one way or another violence promoting! All the shooting and fighting in the cartoons... The video games (even the ones for 4-6 years old) are about shooting, stealing, blowing things up or catching bad guys with guns and bombs and such. I just don't like that part of our culture.
I'm not one of those parents that pull all the plugs and tell their kids "You will have none of this, no matter what all the other kids are doing!" I know that living in a large city, where all the other kids are watching these violent cartoons and playing the games, it is pretty much impossible to avoid them coming into contact with this culture. And being forcefully deprived of it would just make them rebel. I speak from experience :-) But I struggle every single day with the dilemma of how much to allow? How much to deny? How to explain it to them? How to show them a different way, a different view...
Parenting is just so bloody HARD!
3 comments:
I agree with you It is so difficult to get away from violence these days I had no idea video games for little ones included it. But then so did Bugs Bunny et al I guess.
As for Steve he didn't have any toy guns. That was the rule for most of our group of friends.
Good luck with the super heros. They sound a lot like the book I am reading now!
BTW, that's grandma commenting.
Well, I remember growing up in Austria, very young, and we kids had a fascination with Indians. Don't ask me how because there was no TV, video games, even comics... but we secretly decided to get together to do some serious playing. We gathered bandages, made bows and arrows, gathered bondage materials and were fully expecting torture and blood to flow. I don't remember why we couldn't go through with it. So isn't it better the kids today just pretend act out their fantasies, instead of actually tying up the neighbour and drilling him/her with arrows? Maybe we don't give them enough credit in knowing what's real and what's fantasy. Or do kids at that age live entirely in fantasy? They'll have to grow up soon enough. As long as they don't hurt each other or shoot the racoons, I say let them play, but be watchful.
Grandpa
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