How Children Cope With Reality

The full title of the book by Gerard Jones is Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence.
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How Children Cope With Reality


When I was growing up, everyone I knew had a toy gun, whether it was a squirt gun or a Nerf gun, or something that was just plain shaped like a gun. I never had Nerf guns and I had two squirt guns which were kept in the attic until summer when they were used for water balloon fights or squirt gun fights. These guns could not be used for cops and robbers, cowboys and indians, or any other game that my friends and I thought of. They were strictly for water fights and whenever we wanted to play some other shooting game, we had to go to a different friend’s house.

For many parents, putting a toy gun in their son or daughters hands is the last thing they want to do. The parents don’t want their children to believe that it is alright to shoot and kill people. When parents ask if the game of “cops and robbers” is just for pretend or for fun, the child usually says that it is. The children know that if they shoot their friends they will always get back up again. But what parents don’t realize is that their children understand that it is make believe and that in real life it isn’t just pretend. The children are just releasing their aggression in a good way instead of hitting or punching and doing harm to other people or themselves. They are pretending.

Some parents believe that giving their child a toy gun will make them want a real gun sometime in their life and that the wanting of a real gun will lead to tragedies such as the shooting at Columbine High School or the incident with Kip Kinkel. These, however, are very rare cases.

At a young age children don’t know how to handle or take care of their aggression. Their parents are telling them one thing while their mind and bodies are telling them another thing. Children watch television shows like Power Rangers, Dragon Ball Z, Pokémon, or other shows that involve fighting or action. And they watch these television shows to take out their aggression. I recall reading a chapter in Gerard Jones’ Killing Monsters where there were two children watching Power Rangers. When there was an action or fighting scene against the “bad guys” they would stand up and start shooting and air punching each other. Their parents would then tell them to sit down or they would turn off the television. But as it turns out, this air fighting may have been the best way to release their aggression instead of taking it out on other things and hurting themselves.

By becoming a Power Ranger, they can release their aggression in a way that is best fit for them and they can overcome their fears. Science fiction or fantasy is easier for a child to understand than the real world. The real world is too incomprehensible to them. What is easier for children to understand is less easy for adults to understand and vice versa. For instance, a child may paint or draw a picture that is somewhat violent in school. The child’s teacher will then see the picture and call his or her parents about what the child drew or painted. This will then worry the parents and they won’t know what happened to their little boy or girl. But what the parents and teachers fail to do and realize is why the child drew the picture. The picture could very well be of himself or herself overcoming a monster. This, to the parent’s and teacher’s eyes, could be just an ordinary monster and that the child is shooting at. But to the child’s eyes, he or she doesn’t care about the gun; they care about overcoming the monster. This could represent a bully that picks on them or steals their lunch. The monster could also be an older brother or sister that picks on them. What the child is doing is taking out his or her aggression, which is facing reality but mixing it with fantasy or science fiction. They are taking out their aggression in the way that seems fit to them. But here again what parents fail to realize is that they are facing reality with fantasy and science fiction.

When children are having difficulty distinguishing fantasy and reality that is when the trouble sets in. When a child grows older and they start making fantasies their reality, this is when their parents really need to step in and try to get them help as with the case of Kip Kinkel who wanted to have a gun and begged his parents to get one for him. His parents kept saying no until his dad finally said yes. He brought the gun to school and got caught with it. They let him go and a while later he shot his parents. The shooting at the Columbine High School was also related to the ability of not being able to distinguish between fantasy and reality. Both of the shooters in each case played violent video games, and were not able to distinguish that the video games were not real.

The best thing a parent can do for their kids is to monitor how much television they watch. Let children be children, and let them play fight each other. If one of them gets hurt, they know they are playing too hard and that they need to take it a little easier. It is not good for a child to bottle up all of their aggression. The two cases stated earlier are extreme cases. If one’s child is watching power rangers, it is good for the parent to sit down and watch it with them. This lets the child know that the parents at least know a little of what is going on in their child’s head and it also shows that they are interested.

I recall another passage in Killing Monsters where the author was having a Nerf gun fight with his son and many of his friends. His friends consisted of boys and girls. I believe one of the best things that a parent can do is to join in the fantasy or “cops and robbers” that their child is playing in. This gives the child a boost of confidence that what the child is doing is alright, and that their parents approve of what they are doing. It is good for a parent to join in the make believe of their children because it makes them part of fantasy and reality and not just reality. Being a part of both, forms a connection with the child and makes it easier for the child to understand reality. During the Nerf gun fight, the author’s son stubbed his toe, but he got right back up again because dad was there fighting the “bad guys” with him.

In the end I believe that it is good for a parent to let their children watch television shows like Power Rangers, Pokémon, and Dragon Ball Z because the child can make an easier connection with these programs to help release their aggression, rather than doing it the way grown ups do in the real world. But the way children handle there aggression by watching these television shows helps them for the real world, because they know that the shows they watch are make believe and that the real world isn’t. This is one thing that my parent’s never understood about the squirt guns. My parents believed that water was less violent than make-believe bullets.