Speak up for children when you have to be a renegade. Speak up for children when your palms are sweaty, your mouth is dry, and the butterflies won’t stop fluttering. No one will know any of those things, but everyone will hear what you say, and if we’re all lucky what you say will make a difference.
– Samuel Broaden and Kisa Marx, from Rethinking Weapon Play in Early Childhood

In the Exchange Reflections, “Exploring Consent and Power with Gun Play,” based on an article by Mike Huber, the possible drawbacks of simply banning gun play are explored:

“If a teacher simply bans the play because ‘We do not play with guns at school,’ the message the players receive is that whoever is in charge decides what happens. After all, the teacher does not ban other play that children choose simply because of the theme. The children are not actually being unsafe. They know they are not actually playing with guns, but rather pretending to play with guns. This can be a big distinction for the children playing. They know they could not bring real lions to school, but they can play lion. They could not actually fill the school with hot lava, but they can pretend there is hot lava in the school. So why can they not pretend to use a gun? The most likely answer is because the teacher has declared that they cannot. Therefore, the message is, ‘The person in power decides what happens.’

“Looking into the future, this is a dangerous message for any child to grow up with. Some day these children may grow up to find themselves in power. Do they get to be the one who decides what happens to other people? If they are subordinate to someone, do they have to follow that person’s wishes?”

And Huber offers a number of other issues related to gun play that he encourages early educators to consider carefully.

Note: For deeper reflection on a similar topic, the book, Pursuing Bad Guys, describes a teacher’s journey on a year-long exploration with children on topics such as goodness and badness, safety and courage, real and pretend.