Children and airsoft??

[Cuban-Trog]

So what's the right age to start talking to your kids about RIFs?? I'm a father of two and my airsoft stuff is all over the place.. Obviously void of mags and ammo.. Now my four year old is so interested.. I don't know weather to go into detail with him so he respects it or keep saying don't touch that and he goes ahead and does without me knowing.. What are your views??

[b1n0gHo5t]

I don't know how receptive 4 year olds are to learning the meaning of respect or health & safety
I personally would lock them rif's away tell him/her they are not toy's (i know i know deep down they are)
& do all in your power to make sure they are not active so even if they do have ninja skills and manage to get their hands on them the worst they can do is drop it or dribble on it

[GiantKiwi]

They should always be treated as real firearms around children, so kept out of reach at all times.

[Zak Da Mack]

I think airsoft should be introduced around 12/13 years old when they start to understand consequences of certain actions etc. But I would not show airsoft to a 4 year old, I'm not a child expert or anything, but at that age, he's most likely just interested in different things, learning the world and stuff.Keep it out of reach and just keep on telling him that it's dangerous and not for him to handle.

[Chock]

Just so you know I'm not completely talking out of my arse, I'm background checked and registered with Ofsted to allow me to work with and teach children, even though I more often than not teach adults (I did all that Ofsted stuff mainly because my girlfriend is a childminder, so that I could assist her if necessary without causing my GF any problems work-wise). Nevertheless, I have very often worked with the kids my GF looks after professionally, where she has to monitor their development, keep records of it and submit reports about it, so I know a fair bit about what is and is not a good idea with kids from about age two, up to around age seven.

 

At four years old, children are just starting to understand responsibility, but they are not always aware of consequences, and so the level of responsibility they can be trusted with is fairly minimal. The classic example of this is family pets, children often want a pet, and invariably say they will care for it in an attempt to persuade parents to get a pet, but that commitment often wavers very quickly. It's worth noting that we are talking about a creature's welfare with that example, which is not a trivial matter, and so if we extrapolate that to cover people's safety and welfare with weaponry (even airsoft weaponry), it shows that responsibility may not be fully there with young kids, even if they manage to persuade you that it might be.

 

That said, not all children develop at the same rate. Of course when not worrying about if their kids are normal, most parents proudly imagine their kids are amazing whenever they do or achieve something new, so it can often be difficult to know how bright your kid is in comparison to others, but generally speaking a parent will know if their kid is ready to learn something, because it will very quickly become apparent if their attention wavers the moment you start talking about something in more detail. So, if your child is inquisitive and curious about your airsoft guns, then by all means explain them to the child, but keep the following in mind...

 

You will get arguments from sociologists about whether young boys are predisposed to want to play with guns, but the likelihood is that deep in there somewhere, are the genetics of the hunter/gatherer which will make boys more inclined to be interested in weapons. It may not please those in favour of equal opportunities among the sexes to acknowledge that, but it is generally rather pointless to do battle with nature. Like it or not, your kids will be exposed to guns in the media, in computer games, via their friends at school, etc, etc. So it's probably not a bad idea to at least try to install some sort of responsible attitude towards weaponry. However, at the age of four, whilst most little lads like nothing better than running around with other kids pointing a toy cap gun at them and shouting 'pow, you're dead', the concept of death has very little meaning to a four year old, and such games are more about power and imagination than about blowing someone's head off. Thus it is a bad idea to prohibit or snatch toy guns from little boys, imagining they will somehow be shielded from the world. Rather than angrily proclaiming to them that 'guns are dangerous', you should emphasise that it is 'fun to play' and 'pretend', as this is what young kids are doing in exactly the same way as they do when playing with toy trains and cars. Where toy guns are concerned, it is the perfect way to introduce the notion of playing safely, by pointing out your airsoft weapons are 'daddy's toys which he plays and pretends with'. You can emphasise that you too find it fun to imagine and play, but that you have to follow rules and play responsibly, just as they do, because even toys can hurt someone if you don't play nicely with them.

 

So there is absolutely nothing wrong with you showing your children your airsoft guns, it might even provide some good lessons and help stimulate their imaginations, but you should be at pains to emphasise safety - you don't have to go all 'drill sergeant' on them - just a simple mention every once in a while is probably all that they are likely to understand anyway at a young age. With that in mind, perhaps get a secure cabinet you can put your weapons away in. After all, you probably tell your kids to put their toys away in a toy box, so why not set them a good example and do the same? Kids want to emulate their parents and learn by example, so there's an opportunity to impart a propensity for being tidy!

 

As with everything child-related, it's better to praise than to admonish, if you can manage it. So if you are teaching them how to play with nerf guns or water pistols or whatever, then praise them when they play safely and teach them some basic safety rules. Again, keep this simple, such as asking them not to point their toy guns at those who are not playing. What is helpful, is to buy toy guns which really do look like toys (i.e. very obviously not real looking in terms of colour), as this helps to emphasise the difference between toys and real guns, and helps to define the borders of play versus real life. Save the RIFs til later though, they're a bit too young to be handling them apart from when you explain what they are before locking them away (and very bloody securely, kids are devious and clever).

[n1ckh]

I agree with what's been said above

 

Even RIF's should be stored in a locked box or cabinet and away from bb's/ammo

 

At 4 years old, they are still like a sponge and will soak anything up but may or may not know/understand things, I would lock them away from him and explain to him when he is 7 or 8 when he has a better understanding and has a bit of knowledge of the 'real world'. Its hard to talk to such young kids as we adults can't comprehend how they think because of our life experiences already lived

 

I'm a father of 13 & 14 year old boys and also a 3 year old daughter, I consider myself to be lucky as I served in the army and was in the army cadets so I have 10+ years of fire arms experience, my sons have passed basic weapons handling with the army cadets and that's when I bought my 1st weapons, even now I'm still present when they handle our pistols and rifles, everything is supervised by me (even cleaning them)

 

I sat on my sofa one day and placed a springer SA80 (safety off & empty mag on) on the floor, one at a time I told them to pick it, thankfully they checked the safety catch 1st, put it on safe, took the mag off and cleared it

[Sitting Duck]

keep them well out of the way and remove all mag/batteries etc.....

 

they are feckin dangerous even to drunk adults let alone young kids

so always should be treated with respect

 

when he starts school them maybe a nerf gun (5/6/7 yrs old etc...)

around 10-ish then show him under close supervision airsoft stuff

hopefully by then he would of learned some respect and common safety sense

 

even with nerf some basic eye protection - blah blah blah

and this respect will carry over when he is ready to venture into close supervised airsoft

 

well that is my take on this - and perhaps a slow & safe(ish) way to introduce kids to sport

 

if he don't like it then simply tell him this Christmas:

 

Its Nerf of nothin' son

[Sam91]

I wouldn't let a child anywhere near an RIF, in this day and age you can't really leave them lying around - one funny passer-by who has a quick glance through a window and the armed response will be round!

[Cuban-Trog]

Thanks for all the responses, obviously I'm not entirely stupid, although the RIFs are within grasp they are away. My mags, batteries and mags are well away and can't be accessed. Nerf it is!!

[team flex]

Yep, in my opinion they should be taught about rifs and the respect they deserve, but that's a a bit too young for them to fully comprehend it, although it's your choice and ultimately you should make the decision, surrounded will make the right one.

 

Just one side note, nothing to do with you or anything but I have a cousin who is quite violent with nerf and likes the idea of shooting people etc. I think it also deserves some respect and that's where they went wrong. He has no idea about it, just my thought on it although I know they are pretty much harmless it's good to get them into the practise asap...

[TheFull9]

To say there's a million variables would be an understatement.

 

IMO, teach 'em young, with highly stringent 100% supervision. Everyone's brain is different so nobody can say for certain what any given stimulus will output in terms of behaviour, so it's all a fudge factor. I know personally my parents hate 'guns' and 'war' but they're entirely ignorant of anything to do with either subject and constantly cause me to face palm hard. I was banned from having any toy guns until I was at least 14 or so then eventually got a springer airsoft gun when I was about 16, also completely banned from any first-person shooter games until about 14; guess what I really like now? Heck I ended up thinking that joining the military as an armourer would be the best plan, can't go much further the other way than what they intended. The stuff my parents tried to push me and my brother to do we ended up hating, the stuff I was banned from I'm massively in to.

 

I guess the question about when they can handle a RIF is whether they can be trusted to take safe handling seriously and be trusted absolutely to keep the weapon pointed in a safe direction at all times if instructed to do so. If the answer's yes then nobody's going to get shot, if the answer's no well then obviously that's a different matter.

 

Personally I say take away the mystery and any false ideas they might develop in their minds. I think children taught properly and strictly early on are more likely to be safest in the long run, long as it's all entirely supervised until they're much older, substantially more trust worthy and able to comprehend the consequences of their actions fully.

[Chock]

Here's an interesting tale which you may or may not know, about children and guns, which sort of highlights the need to lock them away and how important it can be to teach responsibility.

 

It concerns General Charles Elwood 'Chuck' Yeager...

 

Despite having risen to the rank of General, being one of the top scoring fighter pilots in WW2, and probably the most famous test pilot of all time, in having been the first pilot to take the rocket-powered Bell X-1 past the 'sound barrier', Yeager came from extremely humble beginnings. He was quite literally a hillbilly kid, living in a sharecropper's shack, with his family eeking out a meagre living from working farmland and hunting for food with rifles, often to quite literally avoid starving because they were so poor.

 

One day, when Chuck was about four years old and his brother Roy was about six, they came across their father's twelve gauge shotgun laying on the table. Roy began playing with it, with he and Chuck sat on the floor. Roy found some shells for the thing and managed to load it, then Roy accidentally fired it, unfortunately hitting their two year old sister, Doris Ann, who was killed by the blast. In recounting the tale, Yeager says that rather than admonishing the boys, since it was a tragic accident, and despite his heartbreaking guilt at having left the gun unattended, their father took them aside and taught them how to handle the gun properly and safely, which admittedly as Yeager points out, he perhaps should have done sooner. Nevertheless, he does say that one can only learn from such sad occurrences and there is little else one can say about the matter.

 

It's interesting to note that the early exposure to being taught how to shoot well, coupled with his mechanical ability gained from tinkering with aging farm machinery in attempting to keep it going, is what led to Yeager's success, since in spite of his humble beginnings, the Air Force could hardly deny the talent of a man who was one of the first piston engined pilots to shoot down a jet fighter, and who also managed the feat of shooting down five aircraft in a single sortie, even though they did actually insist on him taking some elocution lessons when it came to his being picked for stardom and promotion, as his hillbilly accent was not the kind of image they wanted for their heroes.

 

As for Yeager himself, he always attributes his success as a fighter pilot to his ability to shoot well, and although he was a talented pilot, he regarded flying ability as a very definite second to being able to shoot properly and judge the amount of 'lead' required to hit a target, which he learned from his father showing him how to shoot well when it really mattered, i.e. when putting food on the table during the Depression Era.