Boys and War Play: A Christian Perspective

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In this episode, host Elizabeth Urbanowicz delves into war play among boys, exploring the dynamics of battleships to good versus bad scenarios. She offers a biblical perspective on the intent behind such play, discussing the values of imagination, energy expulsion, and leisure. Elizabeth differentiates between glorifying violence and channeling protective instincts, emphasizing the importance of discerning between the two. Furthermore, she touches on the significance of inclusion in play, ensuring that every child feels involved. Whether you're a parent, educator, or simply interested, this episode offers a perspective on children's playtime. Join us for a conversation on ensuring play remains rooted in a biblical worldview.

Transcript

Note: The following is an auto-transcript of the podcast recording.

Hello friends, and welcome to another episode of the Foundation Worldview Podcast where we seek to answer your questions so that you can equip the children that God has placed in your care to carefully evaluate every idea and I encounter and understand the truth of the biblical worldview. I'm your host, Elizabeth Urbanowicz, and I'm thrilled that you joined me for another episode today. Today's question says, "Can you address war play among boys? Not video games, just typical good guy, bad guy, or battleship bomber stuff. I have looked for articles but don't know where to find one by Christians." Interesting question.

Before we dive down deep into answering that question, I would ask that if you have found the content of this podcast beneficial that you would like and subscribe to make sure that you never miss a future episode. I would also ask you to invest the time writing a review so that more people can discover this content and we can equip as many children as possible to carefully evaluate every idea they encounter.

Now, this is a really interesting question. What should we think about the type of play that our children engage in? And especially this question is talking about war play among boys, and those of you who have listened to this podcast for a while, you can probably guess the first thing I'm going to say because I say it frequently, is we always want to think of what is the goal. So if we're thinking through this creative play with our boys playing good guy, bad guy stuff or Battleship Bomber, this is creative play. So what is the goal of creative play?

Well, I think that there's a few goals to this type of play. The first is to allow our children to use their God-given gift of imagination. The second goal that I think would be to expel energy through having fun because we know kids have a lot of energy and quite often little boys have a lot of energy. And then I think the third thing would be to enjoy God's good gift of leisure. This playtime is leisure time and it's a good gift that God has given us. So again, these three things that I think are the goals of creative play are to allow our children to use and grow their God-given imaginations, to expel energy by having fun, and to use God's good gift or to enjoy God's good gift of leisure.

And so then when we're thinking about this specific type of creative play and when we're thinking about playing battles or battleship or bombing or good guy, bad guy, we want to ask, are these things being done within the bounds of Scripture? Because I think we can agree that this type of play, it can allow our children to grow their imaginations. They're not just sitting in front of a screen or they're not just playing with a toy that has a certain function. They're actually being creative. They're expelling a lot of energy by running around, playing good guy, bad guy stuff, and they're also enjoying the gift of leisure. But we want to ask, okay, is this being done within the bounds of Scripture?

So I think a few questions that we're wise to ask ourselves is first, is this play glorifying violence or is it simply tapping into the instinct that many males have to protect? So is this just glorifying violence that our kids just love being violent so they're constantly playing violent things, or is it tapping into this instinct that not all but many males have to protect? Now it can be a fine line in determining this, and it really needs to be done on a case by case basis for how are our kids playing? Are they just loving to play violently or are they actually just tapping into this desire to protect?

And so this is a conversation we might need to have with our kids discussing what is appropriate and what is not appropriate. If they're playing with foam swords and they're sword fighting, that can be appropriate. If they're purposely hurting one another or they're getting pleasure out of hurting one another or they're just playing and it's always the bad guys winning, and I'm putting up air quotes for "bad guys," it was the bad guys winning and they're just glorifying evil, then that's not appropriate. Where if they're just playing sword fight play or they're pretending to be aliens invading the galaxy, or they're playing cops and robbers or something like that, that can be an appropriate form of play.

The next thing that we need to think through is this good guy, bad guy fighting, or is it just all plain fighting? Is there actually some goodness that's being portrayed or is it just all fighting for the sake of fighting? Because fighting for the sake of fighting might not be healthy in large doses. We know sometimes little kids that have a lot of energy and this desire to protect and to move around, they might just fight to fight. And while in all cases that's not inherently wrong, doing that all the time might not be the healthiest thing for them because in Scripture, we're commanded not just to fight for fighting's sake, that we're to fight against injustice, we're to fight against evil. We're not just to fight and quarrel with one another. But if they are fighting, play fighting for the cause of justice, that is biblical. If it is the good guys that are always fighting the bad guys, that is biblical, that biblically we are to fight injustice. We are to fight all forms of evil for the sake of honoring God. So that's the second thing we want to figure out.

The next thing I think we need to ask ourselves is where are they getting these ideas for their play? Is it just strictly coming from their imaginations and they're growing their imaginations, or are they getting certain ideas from different shows that they're watching from different video games that they're playing from different people that they're hanging out with? Because if we see certain ideas from different shows that they're watching on a tablet or from different friends and these ideas are kind of steering them in the wrong direction, it is just fighting for the sake of fighting or it's extremely violent, then we might need to change the media that they engage with or the books that they're reading or the type of people that they're spending a lot of time with.

And also, if these ideas are just coming from their imaginations, this is a conversation that we can have with them about the goodness of imagination and imaginative play, but also how our imaginations have been affected by sin. So we want to make sure that our imaginations are honoring God and we're thinking about things that are honoring to God.

Now, as we're thinking through these things, if we're thinking, what's the cause of this? Are they glorifying violence or are they tapping into some instinct to protect? Is it good guy versus bad guy or is it all just fighting? And then where are they getting these ideas? We want to be thinking through these things. And again, it's going to be a case by case basis because I can give some general principles in answering this question, but I don't know the exact situation that each and every listener is going through. So it's going to need to be case by case.

In general. I don't think we need to worry about this too much, this type of play too much, provided there's certain things in place. Provided that our kids are not including grotesque violence or things that are blatantly evil. I think that we know the things that are evil, and I think we know when things are just grotesquely violent and we don't want our kids reveling in that or glorifying that. And so provided that there's not grotesque violence and things that are blatantly evil, I don't think we need to worry about this.

Also, provided that no one is truly getting hurt, while we do need to allow our kids to take more risks. I was sharing with a friend not that long ago that when I used to teach, I would allow my students to do things like jump off, like swing really high and then jump off, or I would allow them to walk up the slide and then go down, provided that there wasn't a huge long line at the top and they were getting in people's way where not everybody who was teaching at the school felt the same way. Where my philosophy was our kids need to learn how to take some risks. We can't just put them in a bubble and protect them from everything they need to learn how to take some risks. And so the same with play fighting. We don't want to just wrap our kids in a bubble and tell them that they're never allowed to play with water guns or they're never allowed to play with foam swords or lightsabers or anything like that. But we don't want people to actually get hurt. So if they're fighting or play fighting in a way where people are actually getting hurt, then we're going to need to set some new parameters around that.

Also, another important thing to think through as our kids get older is that if they're really enjoying this play, fighting that certain friends are not being left out. Because yes, in general, many boys do like this type of playing good guys versus bad guys or battleship or bomber. And while there's nothing inherently wrong with that, not all boys are designed the same way. Some boys don't really like that. Some boys prefer more to be sitting and reading or to play games that are more based on our arts or just athletics. And we want to just recognize that not all children are designed the same.

So if we see that our children are constantly in a group playing these war-like type games and there's one or two other boys that are left out, we want to make sure that we're helping our children think, how can we involve those boys who are left out? Can we modify this game in a way that appeals to them? Can we play this war game sometimes? And then other times play a game that they want to play? How can we really involve this child? Because just because many boys are drawn to this doesn't mean that all boys are drawn to this. And so we want to make sure that we are teaching our boys to include others, or even there may be some girls that are interested in playing with them, and we want to make sure that they're not excluding the girls in this. So as our boys are playing this, we want to make sure that we're equipping them to love others well.

Now, as I said before, these are just some general ideas. As with many things, I would highly recommend that if you're concerned about the type of play that your kids are involved in, that you talk with those that you trust in your local church, because hopefully those in your local church know you and your family well. And if they are grounded in scripture, then they should be able to offer you specific advice for your specific situation because they know you to a level that I will never be able to know you as someone who's just coming over through a podcast or on YouTube.

So those are my general advice for thinking through how our children, specifically our boys, are engaging in play and specifically in play that is more warlike.

Well, that's a wrap for this episode, but if you have a question that you would like for me to answer on a future Foundation Worldview Podcast, you can submit that by going to FoundationWorldview.com/podcast. As we leave this time together, my prayer for you as always is that no matter the situation in which you and the children God has placed in your care, find yourselves. You would trust that God is working all things together for your good by using all things to conform you more into the image of His Son. I'll see you next time.