I was telling my 5 year old the story of Snow White last night and when I said that Snow White triumphed in the end, he was disappointed and wanted me to change the ending so that the evil queen kills Snow White and the magic mirror states that the evil queen is still the most beautiful. I did so reluctantly but then said something like "it's no fun when the bad guy wins." and so he sighed and said, 'Fine. Snow White lived.' He does stuff like this alot and he's always saying things like "I'll chop your hands off!" in a playfighting fashion. He's very gentle and loving though with teh family, his friends, our dog and even bugs (except ants which he likes to squash!). Just want to know - is this normal boy behavior or should i discourage it at all? Thanks!
I don't think there's anything wrong with boys watching Snow White or Cinderella, but I do think Isn'tthisfun? has a point. Maybe the more male hero, action oriented stories would be more his style.
My son loves Star Wars and Spider-Man and Avengers, but he doesn't like watching the whole movie. He likes to skip ahead to the action scenes. Boys?!?
Since he's gentle with animals and bugs, I don't think you need to worry about it.
Well yeah...the evil queen has magical powers and a magical mirror and can shape-shift! Snow White is what, pretty? I think he has a good sense of where the action lies in a story. I have two boys, 3.5 and 6, and they both will come out with some crazy things like chopping each others' toes off. They are also both loving and gentle with living things. Of course it is good to remind them that we don't hurt people...but I am pretty sure that a boy raised in the forest by magical fairies would still try to be a ninja sword fighter with a laser gun. Your son rooting for the bad guy and playing rough games does not mean he is a sociopath!!
Maybe instead of Snow White, you should read him superhero stories. He sounds like he needs more action and less "whistling while he works", to me. Or try The Lion King if you want to stick with Disney. But Snow White is a fairly princess-y story. Same with Cinderella---I never read that to my son when he was little. We watched the movies at one point, but he preferred Tarzan or The Rescuers Down Under. Movies/stories where the main characters are boys.
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Ziggy, I don't think there's anything wrong with it, either. But he seems to not be much into the princess side of things. He likes the bad guy--maybe not as much because she is bad, but because she DOES stuff. There is a lot more action (seems to me anyway) in the less princess-y movies. We all love watching the fairies bake a cake with their magic and then clean up... but sometimes boys just want some ACTION, and baking doesn't really hit it out of the park in that regard.
Tarzan--they swing from vines and grunt, and all kinds of manly, aggressive, ACTION.
Lion King--there's singing and such, but also some real serious violent stuff... hyenas are pretty heinous, and then there's the evil Scar and his antics.. It's still a love story in the end. And even bigger than just romantic love, but love for family, and history, etc.
I bet he'd LOVE The Iron Giant. It's a giantic robot from space that eats metal. And he befriends a boy named Hogarth. (Just saw it listed as one of the top 50 movies all kids should see before they turn 13.---we've owned it for years and both my kids--one girl, one boy--love it still).
Even the Rescuers Down Under--which has mice (and Eva or Zsa Zsa Gabor as the female mouse) for some of the main characters, has a little boy who undertakes to rescue a golden eagle from a poacher in the outback of Australia.
These kinds of movies are what boys tend to adore. They like to imagine they are the hero, or whoever is misunderstood, or doing the action. It is harder for them to imagine themselves as the hapless princess. That's all I was trying to say. Even in Sleeping Beauty (with the fabulously evil Maleficent who turns into a dragon), the only real action is when the prince/hero fights the dragon near the end. He makes a pretty brief appearance. Most of the movie just isn't that action oriented. It's birds flying and singing and stuff. GREAT stuff... but not ACTION the way boys tend to enjoy it.
I think it's fairly normal for a five-year-old to love power and action! He may sound violent, but that doesn't mean he has even a clue about real live violence.
All other things being equal, keep an eye on it. If he starts acting out his power fantasies on people and other living things, reconsider.
Right now I can imagine a story line in which the ants in your neighborhood take revenge... heh heh heh....
http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/creat...
Please read this article.
He's being a perfectly normal kid. My daughter sometimes wanted to change up the endings of stories, and she loved to have pretend sword fights. She's now grown, and among other things, is heavily involved in animal rescue.
I do think it's normal, and just from what you wrote he knows right from wrong and just likes the twist. He said "Fine"; that there shows he is normal (to me) and just wants that action.
Sounds like something both my sons would do.
You should stress to him that he cannot say things like "I'm going to chop off your hands" or "I'm going to shoot you" or anything like that at school or perhaps just out in public. You can explain that someone might not realize he's just pretending or play acting and might think he is really going to hurt people. Schools are VERY sensitive to things like that.
M
We never had that with our son.
He never wanted the bad guys to win.
Although he never thought the T-rex in Jurassic Park was bad (in spite of eating a lawyer) - he always asserted the T-rex would be his friend.
Discourage violence all you can.
Be careful what he watches on tv/computer.
My sweet, conscientious, sensitive 6yo son who loves his sisters (when they aren't all fighting like cats and dogs) loves to say provocative contradictory "bad guy" things and talk about violence etc a lot too. It's a boy thing imo. Though my youngest daughter does it too actually. I like to put these things in a big perspective. We've been studying history together for a couple of years from ancient times and now we're into the middle ages..we had been reading about the Crusades and then last night the Black Death, and we're moving on to Joan of Arc. Humanity is not all nicey nicey. Never has been. I think childrens wide range of turbulent emotions are completely logical as humans. Don't forget people sent their 7 year old sons off to become Spartan warriors and knights back in the day..! When people try to keep their kids 100% nice all the time it kind of makes me cringe. Though I am all for good behavior and morals and discipline, but it's needed because of "natural" human tendencies.
NPR just had a story about boys and their emotional development, Giving Boys A Bigger Emotional Tool Box
http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/06/25/325464770/giving-b...
It was interesting, and I think your son is pretty typical. You might listen to this piece.
