Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Play/toy weapons

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Jul 19, 2016, at 11:28 AM, Rick Gravrok <rick.gravrok [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> No, but we did decide that kids could only play video games in private
> residences and not in CS.

Video games have not been a problem since most kids do play them at home or in 
the game room which is not visible unless you got to specifically look in.

I have a problem with the guns and bullets. The guns are large Star Trek 
looking things which I don’t object to in and of themselves. But the bullets, 
even though they are foam rubber, could hurt a young child if they land in an 
eye or temple. 

I’ve taken it on myself to ask the boys to not use the CH interior as a war 
zone —it’s very inviting because of all the spaces to hide. And not to use the 
bullets when other children are around.

I also asked another child who constantly has a large spear-like shaft in his 
hand as tall as he is, not to use it when he plays in the tot-lot and walks 
around the top edge of the fence around the sliding board platform. He may be 
safe but it’s not a good example for young children who don’t have the skills 
he has.

It seems to work best to tell them that they can be as careful as possible but 
that isn’t the problem. The problem is that younger children are not 
predictable and do a lot of "dumb things.” Since they are happy to accept that 
younger kids are totally dumb, this caution lasts at least for a few days

(I used a similar caution to keep my children from walking alone on a beach 
road. “There could be teenagers driving those cars.” It become a standard 
caution between them — "Be careful, it might be teenagers." )

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org