Discussing war play at school and zero-tolerance toy gun policies

by Kevin Lindburg

In Massachusetts a young boy was given detention and forced to write a string of apologies for bringing a small Lego gun on a school bus.  After being caught with a toy gun, a five year old in Maryland was interrogated in the principles office to a point where he wet his pants and was then given 10 days suspension.  In Washington a group of elementary students were suspended for firing Nerf guns in class; guns that the teacher had asked them to bring as part of a science experiment. While the brunt of this craziness has fallen on our little boy’s girls are not immune.  In Pennsylvania a 5-year-old girl was suspended and forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation because she had threatened to shoot a friend with a hello kitty bubble gun, which she didn’t even have with her at school! 

I believe banning children from war play at school and zero-tolerance toy gun policies are not just unnecessary, but also actively hurting the development of our students (mainly boys).  As often happens in the wake of a shocking tragedy, much of this policy was put into place as a knee jerk reaction to tragic school shootings that began to take place across America in the 90s.  Advocates argued that war or gun-play would condone and encourage violence and thus had no place in our schools.  This reasoning is understandable, but fueled by fear.  The policies were passed behind the unquestionable argument of we must do everything we can to protect our children; with little to no research to back them up.

I contend that these bans on war or gun-play and harsh zero-tolerance policies toward toy guns need to be repealed.  Firstly because they are not effective in combating school viloence, secondly because no real connection exist between these types of play and school violence and thirdly these policies are actually causing damage to the development of our young boys (who are currently falling behind girls in the classroom).

These Policies are not effective. 

Banning toy guns from schools and not allowing war play has been unsuccessful in combating school violence.  In 2014 a federal report showed a steady increase in school violence over the last two decades including violence against teachers.  Since the 1990’s America has seen a steady increase in schools shootings.  Reports show that between 2010 and 2014 more school shootings were reported in America then the entire decade of the 1990’s (the decade when we started to see a notable increase in school shootings).   These policies were put into place to stop this horrible trend but have completely failed to do so.  This is because the policies were based on fear not data.

War play and toy guns simply have no connection with real violence in schools.

 Violence and shooting in our schools is horrible and we need to do what we can to solve this issue.  However second graders playing cops and robbers on the playground is not the source of the problem.  Boys have been making sticks into guns and shooting them out on the playground for generations.  If we take the sticks away they use their hands.  This kind of play is natural and existed long before any of these current problems surfaced.  I imagine children have been playing war for as long as their fathers have been marching off to it.  If children playing war on the playground caused this horrible school violence we face then why has the violence just started in recent decades and not existed for as long as this type of play? 

            Children are being exposed to increasing amounts of violence through the mainstream media at home.  This is not something that a school can control.  While schools can’t control the things children are subject to at home to they can support children by working through these themes in a healthy way.  We can’t just ignore this issue; out of site out of mind will not work here.  When we ban these types of play our teachers are missing many valuable opportunities to explain these complex issues to our children in a very relatable way.  Research has shown that if a teacher can connect a lesson with something relatable, like play, a student is far more likely to retain and understand that information and return to it later.  Allowing students to engage in gun or war play at school will allow teachers to explain these complex themes to the students instead of the mass media.

            Many countries around the world do not struggle with school violence like we do in the US.  These countries have not achieved this by banning war play and zero-tolerance policies.  After living in Asia for over three years I have seen that children are aloud to play with toy guns that look far more realistic then the ones available in the US.  Children will play war freely with no stigma attached.  Yet in these places where war play is common, school violence is not.  There is simply no correlation between the two.

Banning this type of play is hurting the development of our boys.  

            An observation study was done in a British school where any type of play fighting had been banned.  One of the first things the researchers noticed was that a lot of time and effort was put into enforcing this policy and it was usually the same group of boys that were breaking this rule. Unexpectedly the group of boys breaking the rule was not just the usual troublemakers.  The teachers reported the group was an even mix of the class.  So students that didn’t normally break rules would routinely break this rule.  It was like they couldn’t help themselves.  As a result these boys were constantly receiving negative attention and became “withdrawn” and “dispirited”.  This is a very natural reaction from any one who is constantly being told that a completely normal desire of theirs is wrong.  The researchers said it was as if these boys “lost their sense of belonging, or never found it in the first place”.  Sometimes they were even seen as the “bad kids” by their classmates.  War play is a very natural thing that isn’t hurting anyone and these children are being punished for it.  All of this has a very negative effect on both the cognitive and emotional development of these little boys.

            As research in child development continues we are learning that imaginative play is a bigger and bigger part of development and promoting self-regulation.  When children are allowed to play what they want to play they will stay engaged longer and play is more imaginative.  Research has found that incorporating pre-school boys interest in weapons rather then banning it “leads to longer more elaborate games that go beyond mere weapon play”.  Studies also show that gunplay teaches young children to read facial cues and body language.  These are all things that our boys are missing out on when war or gun play is banned.  The British government has done away with many of it’s zero-tolerance policies that discouraged “boisterous-play” as they began to see boys falling behind girls in school.

            Many that disagree with me will argue that just because violence has continued to rise in schools does not mean these policies have been ineffective.  That perhaps the results would have been worse had these policies not been in place.  After all why not be on the safe side or error on the side of caution.  To these people I would refer them to my third point.  We have no proof that the policies have been successful in their intended purpose.  However we do have proof that suggests they have been detrimental to the development of our young boys.  This should be reason enough to do away with these ineffective policies.  Other opponents will argue with my point that this type of play existed long before school shootings and increased violence. They would state that school shootings were happening as early as 1853 and say school shootings are not a new phenomenon.  They would be right.  However in the last 25 years we have seen a dramatic increase to the frequency and severity of these occurrences.  This increase does not correspond to an increase in war play in fact the increase of violence corresponds with the application of these policies.

            We can all agree that we need to make our schools a safe place for our children to learn and grow.  These policies that ban gun-play, and zero-tolerance policies for toy guns are not making our schools any safer.  In fact they are hurting the cognitive and emotional development of our boys.  These policies were passed out of fear and emotions, not research.  Lets repeal these policies and put an end to these stories of five year olds being suspended because of G.I. Joe guns or going “pew pew” while holding a stick.