In home practice

[Turfweazel]

I was practicing today with my snap caps and my wife said when our daughter gets older(she is 6 months now) she might see this practice as playing with a gun. My question is do others with children practice dry fire or with snap caps and do you wait till the kids are out of the room. When she is old enough to understand we will talk about the difference between practice and playing. I guess I am just looking to see how others have dealt with this.

 

[87iroc]

I think that she would most definitely see Daddy 'playing with his gun' and think that it was neat and might try to mimic you when she's old enough.

Now I didn't really talk to my daughter about guns until she was older than 5 or 6...so I can't say if you can start training them at a super young enough age to quell the desire to play with daddy's 'toy'...but I know my daughter would mimic what I was doing when she was young with different things(still does to some extent). She just thought whatever daddy did was mostly neat...so I'd be very careful I think.

 

[SERparacord]

All kids mimic the parent/s.

 

[the1kidd03]

It's important that a child's learning about firearms come from the parents and it's never too early for this education to begin. If taught proper safety, handling, etc. early enough then you won't have to worry about them "playing" with guns when they are old enough to be out of your sight and around others' guns.

 

[RH822-A]

Doing dry fire exercises in your home in front of the kids is a bad idea, wait till they're down for a nap or in bed for the night. Kids want to be like mommy and daddy and will try to do what you do.

 

[danielson]

put it this way, dont "play" in front of them until theyre grown enough to know what a snap cap is, and how its different than a bullet.

 

[BK1962]

Kids learn what they live. My son and two daughters are grown. I didn't allow them to have toy guns that looked like real guns. My thought was that they would never be confused about real and pretend. I didn't shoot or practice in front of them when they were small either. But when they were old enough to understand, they were trained on a pellet gun. They moved up from there. I just spent a few hours at the range with my two daughters a week ago. For me, few things are more enjoyable.

 

[Turfweazel]

Thank you for the input I agree and I do most of my practice when my daughter is not around. It just opened my eyes when my wife said that.

 

[looney2ns]

2 yrs old isn't too young for some kids to start learning.
I was at the range the other day, and a 3 yr old was there with dad shooting a 22lr rifle and was darn good at it. He shooting from a bench rest.
Was very safe in his actions. Dad said he'd been shooting since he about 2.5 yrs old.

 

[Coolhuntermike]

My son is almost three and I bought him a little nerf gun for Christmas just to start the conversation of safety and awareness with him. The biggest problem I see with children and parents is communication if you start this early I'm and teach good safety and awareness I think that's the best you can do.

 

[verv]

From my own experience it is best to practice with the kids somewhere else. My 5 year old then 4 got a plastic gun that has the fireworks rounds with it and the first thing she did is point it right at my face and pull the trigger. I have explained to her many times that doing that is not right but she never listened so now the plastic revolver is tucked away until she listens more.

 

[88E30M50]

I think it depends on what the kid is seeing. If a kid sees his/her parent drawing the gun and going 'pew pew pew' while diving behind the couch, then they see a grown up kid playing a game. If they see the parent practicing the exact same draw stroke over and over until they get it right, they will see skill building. Play is fun, practice is boring. If you do a couple of draws and are done, you are playing. If you do 100 draws a night, nobody will mistake that for playing. Kids don't like endless repetition and they will not see it as playing if you are clearly not having fun doing it.

What it might do is build a memory as they are growing up of the work their parent did to become proficient and the seriousness they took in protecting the family. They might grow up thinking that Mom or Dad is a nice, respectful person to others, but that they could truly be a badass if they needed to be.

A lot would depend on the spouse's reaction. If the spouse does not respect the training for what it is, then neither will the kids.