My four-year-old daughter and I were reading one of her favorite books last night, Just Me and My Mom. In this story a child and his mother (full disclosure: the kid is actually some kind of rodent, a critter to be exact) take the train to enjoy adventures in the big city. One of the stops they make is a museum of history where the young critter dons American Indian garb he grabbed from a statue. In his hand is a bow and arrow.
And it was then that our nightly story-reading ritual took a strange turn into the land of teachable moments, a land with which I'm not nearly as acquainted as I should be.
"I use that to get the bad guys too!" my preschool daughter said, pointing at the bow and arrow.
"Get the bad guys?" I asked. "What do you mean? When?"
"When I'm on the playground. But sometimes I use a gun to get 'em."
Up until this point we'd never discussed guns or what they are or what they can do. This was a first and one I hadn't prepared myself in advance to experience (you'd think my long-toiling, four-year stint as a mother would have had me at the ready with a neat and tidy answer but I was dumbstruck.
"Um, a gun?" I asked with trepidation. "Do you know what a gun is?"
"Yeah," she replied. You shoot it. It gets the bad guys. It feels like a shot but it can never come out."
Where in the hell did she hear that? I wondered. Sure, she watches TV but it's always PBS or Noggin (sorry, NickJr...still having trouble accepting that brand adjustment) and unless I've missed a few episodes Dora, Olivia, Toot and Puddle usually ain't packin'.
Her comment led to an in-depth---well, as in-depth as you can get with a tired preschooler whose eyes rolled back into her head 20 seconds into the conversation---talk about what guns are, how they can hurt (and yes, even kill) people and how if she ever sees a gun she should never, under any circumstances, touch it (she should find an adult and tell them where the gun is).
Was that the right way to handle the topic? Was it the best way? I may never know. But it brought the topic of guns out into the open and now it won't be a a strange thing for us (OK, me) to talk about again.
Have you talked to your kids about guns? How old were they? What did you tell them?
Who knew an innocent book about a rat (porcupine? nutria?) could lead to this?
Comments