| TED SPEAKS...ABOUT WAR GAMES |
| PUTTING CHILDISH THINGS AWAY |
A childhood friend of mine one day, without any apparent provocation, took aim and bounced a stone off my head. Pang! What injured me more than the blow itself was the fact that my friend seemed to have no comprehension of the harm he had done. Was he re-enacting a battle scene? A Three Stooges comedy? All I know is that, for a moment in time, this kid was living in a different reality than I was.
I thought of this episode when a columnist from the Monterey Herald recently posed the question: “What to Tell Kids About Real War Games.” She found herself in a straight between allowing her children to “play at war” at home with make believe swords and water pistols, and burdening them with the horrors of “real conflict...real guns and death.”
Her dilemma was understandable. How much world news can a young person handle? And is there a point where innocent war games lose their innocence?
I submit that play acting is as fundamental to a child’s development as his need to compete. Pandering to his love of make-believe has, in fact, become something of a cultural obsession. Witness how the toy and entertainment industries have grown fat peddling war fantasies to impressionable young minds: from mock weapons and combat gear; to action figures; to video games and animated super heroes; to battle epics where blasting tanks and people to smithereens is commonplace.
How might a concerned parent help a youngster bridge the gulf between recreation and reality without overwhelming him with adult anxiety? There can be no absolute formula, given the fact that every child’s temperament is unique. But, as a general principle, I would begin by weaning him away from any activity, drama or video simulation that desensitizes him to violence, or makes light of death and suffering. If a child requires a combat scenario to practice one-upmanship, there are games of strategy, like chess, that can exercise his mind while providing him a safe, metaphorical “battlefield” on which to express himself. By contrast, lopping off an opponent’s limbs with a play sword grossly misuses his imagination.
Permitting a child to take pleasure in slaughtering people, albeit in a harmless simulation, flies in the face of every humane virtue a parent tries to instill in a growing person. What’s more, it disrespects the thousands of real soldiers who have suffered and died in combat. It disrespects the victims of violent crime and terrorism, as well as the families of those who have perished.
A parent needs to impress upon a child that life is NOT a simulation. Pain is real, even when it’s happening to another person. The consequences of one’s actions are also real. Stones maim. Stones kill. Flesh is frail. The combatants we see on the evening news are not actors or video props. When they fall, they cannot be restored to life by pushing a “reset” button, nor dismissed by changing the channel. Better, I say, that a young person learns early on to flinch at the sight of war, than to “jest at scars that never felt a wound.”
Reverence for human life is sign of maturity and strength, not weakness. It is a quality that our enemies conspicuously lack. A youngster, left to his own devices, is not likely to absorb it through his pores while watching the tube, or tearing through his backyard with a zap gun. Compassion must be taught in the home, modeled, reinforced. If people today feel vulnerable and afraid, perhaps it is because they see their once safe world overrun by self-indulgent infants who have never learned it.
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