Should nurseries bite the bullet and stop banning children from playing with guns? Judith Napier observes one that did, with some surprising results
Should little children be allowed to tote toy guns and act out war games? Up to now, the answer has always been emphatically no - such games, goes the argument, encourage boys (it is nearly always boys) to indulge in ever more aggressive and violent behaviour.
Early years settings have worked hard at enforcing a policy that advocates zero tolerance of war, weapons and superhero play. But a London academic has published new research which she claims shows that zero tolerance is, in fact, counter-productive and even damaging.
Penny Holland, who lectures in Early Childhood Studies at the University of North London (UNL), monitored an under-fives centre where the ban on such games was lifted and says that, far from creating wholesale chaos, it led to an amazing outpouring of imaginative play.
She studied the issue as part of the UNL/Pen Green MA in Early Childhood Education with Care and draws her conclusions from the startling effects she witnessed among children at the inner London local authority under-fives centre where she worked.
Zero tolerance to weapon play is currently accepted procedure, probably stemming from the 1960s peace movement and from the growth of feminism.
Penny Holland, herself a feminist with firm views on the nature-versus- nurture argument, says she was wholly convinced that little boys should be discouraged from any exploration of violent play. She was the unlikeliest of candidates, then, to advocate reversing existing policy. But she saw that, whatever the adults ruled, and whatever children asserted ('It's not a gun, it's a thingy'), the policy simply wasn't working.
Penny says, 'Despite our most vigilant efforts, weapons were being made and superhero games were being played... we had got to the point where we felt that all we were doing was teaching a small group of young males to lie creatively.'
And, she adds, staff were growing increasingly worried at the impact they were having on boys who were far too young to interpret the ban as anything but personal rejection.
Those concerns put the issue firmly on the staff agenda, and staff agreed to a lifting of the ban for a trial period. Penny's experience since then has confirmed that, generally, adults find the moral issue - being seen to condone gunplay - the most difficult aspect of accepting a policy review. But parents were informed of the trial ban by letter and through individual discussion with key workers, and their responses were encouragingly positive.
Staff knew the decision was risky. Penny recalls, 'We felt we were taking a huge leap of faith. The first couple of weeks were very difficult for the whole team. We had to grit our teeth. But we stayed with it and then started to see the changes.'
No particular announcement was made to children - staff simply dealt with the issues as they arose. While they showed some surprise, children adapted readily and quickly. After an initial explosion in playing the forbidden games, their interest in these sorts of play waned.
Three boys who had a particular interest in weapon, war or superhero play were chosen (with parental consent) for videoing. They were shadowed for six weeks and quickly came to ignore the presence of the camera.
Analysis of the hours of video-recording and interviews with the team found that boys gained confidence to move beyond bouts of gunplay to more imaginative games, including dressing-up. The staff's fears that girls might become further marginalised proved unfounded - instead they became much more involved in active group play.
Trish Franks, head of the Konstam Under-5s Centre where Penny Holland did so much of her research, comments positively on the experimental lifting of the ban. 'We have not written a new policy yet, but it is the understanding among all of us, and we feel very confident about it. It was nerve-wracking for some of the staff, although others said we should give it a go because we'd tried everything else. We were really surprised at the outcome, actually.'
Penny adds, 'Gun law and unbridled violence did not break out in the nursery. We saw a wealth of positive play, which would have been inhibited during the reign of zero tolerance.'
Her research has clearly touched a nerve among practitioners. Penny's participation at conferences and workshops has led to invitations to conduct staff training days at centres around London.
One such is the 75-place New River Green Early Years Centre and family project in Islington, London. Here, they are in the early stages of trialling a lifting of the ban and will hold further staff discussion before any final policy change.
Deputy Sheila Harrison admits they were initially sceptical but so far have been encouraged at an outpouring of imaginative games involving groups of both boys and girls.
She says, 'We had had a lot of children being quite aggressive, getting into fights, and we were wary that we would be encouraging that. But in fact we have seen amazing imaginative extended games develop, particularly outside.
Children's games have not involved violence, just imaginations running riot.'
It is experiences like this that Penny Holland hopes to track for further confirmation of her findings as she translates her research into a dissertation.
She is convinced that, at the Konstam Centre at least, any return to the ban would be indefensible. She concludes, 'My hope is that other practitioners will be inspired to review their practice and consider again what the most constructive approach to this contentious area of play, in a context of escalating media violence for children, might be.'
Penny Holland welcomes the views of other early years practitioners. She can be contacted by e-mail on pennyholland@unl.ac.uk . Her article, 'Is Zero Tolerance Intolerance?' is published in Early Childhood Practice, Vol 1, no 1, 1999. (To subscribe or for more information on this journal write to 54 Mall Road, Hammersmith, London W6 9DG).
Sticking to their guns
- Gunplay, war games and play involving superheroes from Batman to Power Rangers and characters from the Cartoon Network - all would have been suppressed during the days of zero tolerance. But Penny Holland's fly-on-the-wall video work with her three- to five-year-old age group shows that, left to themselves, boys quickly moved beyond all that into some truly amazing fantasy games.
In one sequence, David (all names have been changed), wears his jacket hood over his head, Robin Hood-style. He equips Ben and himself with pipes to serve as swords. David demonstrates how to secure the trusty sword by slipping it through his underpants. He spots drumsticks on the music trolley and suggests to Ben that they use them, with plasticine, to make bows and arrows. After moulding the shapes, David leads a quick chorus of the Robin Hood theme tune - swords doubling up as guitars, and arrows as microphones. They move to the construction carpet and briefly adopt a sword fight pose, then the play fizzles out as they turn to construction activities.
Another extended game with Ben and Joe starts with a Power Rangers car. This, too, would have been halted during zero tolerance. But it continues for 40 minutes' imaginative play which takes the children in a car-plane to Iceland (Joe's homeland) and, says Penny Holland, it allows Joe to make 'a journey of the heart'.
