My AP Kid
Last Wednesday evening, we went to the Boulder Farmer’s Market and ran in to lots of people we knew. After buying our veggies, we got some food from the vendors and went to sit down on the grass by the ampitheater. We ran into another friend and sat with her and her group. Leif gets up to play with all the kids and is having a great time. I see him walk over to this boy at a tree so I went over to listen to what they were talking about. This cute little 4 yr. old boy has a stick and is “killing the dragon”. He said this tree is a dragon and he is killing it. He was being very aggressive and jabbing at the tree. His mom and 2 yr. old sister were right there and so was Leif. Leif looks around and picks up a pine cone and a leaf and looks at me then the boy and says, “I’m feeding the dragon”. He then is giving the tree the leaf and pine cone. The little boy did not like that, he tells Leif to kill the dragon and again my son says no, I’m feeding the dragon, come on Mama, feed the dragon, too.”
Granted, he only knows of the word dragon bec. one came with his sand and water table so maybe this boy watched some movie with killing dragons but I think Leif is too young for stuff like that – it’s too scary. So, his instinct is to not blatantly kill something (and actually, he doesn’t know the word “kill” either ) but to nurture it instead. The boy’s mom was watching this and the 2 yr. old sister was also “killing” the dragon and the mom says to me, “I don’t know where he gets this from”. Honestly, I think she got embarrassed once Leif started to feed instead of kill the dragon.
Leif does lots of fantasy playing, re-enacting some scenes from shows he watches but we really monitor what we let him watch. He’s 3.5 and I feel he doesn’t need to be exposed to so much intensity. I’d rather him learn things like how to be a friend to someone or learn about music and places on earth, animals, art, etc. not violent images.
July 15 2007 04:05 pm | Leif and parenting
