Super Hero or Super Foe

I know that there are two different ideologies coming anywhere from parents to experts regarding what children watch on television to weather or not playing with guns is harmful to a child's, or boy's psyche. Although I knew that I would at some point have to be uncomfortable with my son, Liam, playing with guns, I lost this battle at 4 1/2. I did notice that although there were no toy guns in the house, he did come home from school making them up out of sticks or legos. Okay, I gave in. There were no phrases of "killing" people or things so I thought it was fun time with daddy shooting all around the house and lots of laughter. They were having a ball.

Then we had an incident at school where he was punched from behind by a kid who already had a history of hitting Liam - another story another blog later- Liam fell down and the boy jumped on Liam's back and wouldn't get off of him. Later, at a teacher conference we found out that there had been four boys, Liam included, playing super heroes, specifically, Power Rangers. Liam had decided to be the bad guy "red guy" so he had gotten attacked by a good guy. All the boys were questioned and they all had concurred with what had happened but Liam is a bit more sensitive than most boys physically as he doesn't have anyone at home to play them with.

What I'm trying to get at though, is that I don't understand why parents allow their children to watch this stuff on TV? Liam has learned all about guns and superheroes at school, since we haven't taught it to him. Maybe it's our fault for being older parents who cater more the arts then the aggressive shows or movies. And even when Jay watches something too aggressive (with guns or violence) he never does it around Liam. And while some may argue that it is healthy if you watch it with your kids and explain it. However, my gut tells me it isn't appropriate when kids are only four. Only four. Isn't there so much more they could be learning than this? I mean, if parents didn't allow them to watch this stuff then yes, they would probably get it from somewhere else, but that argument would be less argued at the tender age of four.

Parents watch wrestling shows, boxing, movies like Iron Man and other violent movies because THEY want to watch it at the selfishness and risk of how a four year old mind internalizes and processes this information. You can't just tell a child, "Well, that's just pretend" expecting that they won't use it on another kid. Not at the age of four. They don't really understand the dynamics of this yet. I wish parents had better minds or sense in them than this. Take your child fishing, throwing or kicking a ball outside, teach them how to ride a bike. Anything but being plugged in to violence. After all, violence only begets violence. And while yes, they can learn from violence, not at this age.