How to Talk to Your Kids About Guns: Ask-Us-Anything Minisode #11
December 27, 2023
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In this special bonus episode, Laura and Shanna answer listener questions about how to talk to kids about guns, how to handle when your kids have birthdays that are close together and more.
If you have a question for an upcoming Ask Us Anything mini-sode, email us at [email protected], or reach out on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok at @bfppodcast!
This episode’s show notes can be found here.
Big Fat Positive: A Pregnancy and Parenting Journey podcast is hosted by Laura Birek and Shanna Micko and produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko and Steve Yager.
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Episode Transcript
Shanna
Hi, welcome to Big Fat Positive with Shanna and Laura. On this Ask Us Anything mini-soad, we dive into the topics of toy guns, fake names, close birthdays, and more. And we wrap it up with our weekly BFPs and BFNs. Let's get started. Hello everyone and welcome to another Ask Us Anything mini-soad where we answer some of your questions. Thank you for sending those in everybody. Laura, we are gonna start off with a question from Sophia and she asks, how do you talk to your kids about guns? My three-year-old boy plays guns with friends and I hate it. Laura, we know that your boys love their pistolas. So how would you approach this?
Laura
Oh, man. Okay, I'm going to just tell you how I'm approaching it and, you know, I don't know if it's the best way or a good way, but this is how I'm doing it because I'm with you, Sophia. I hate it. I fucking hate it. We stay as apolitical as possible on this podcast, so it's like a safe space for everyone, but I will say that like I hate guns like I personally totally fucking hate guns. I feel like I kind of earned the right to rant about it, you know, by having a friend murdered by a guy with a gun. I get to rant about how I personally, just me, I don't speak for the entire podcast or anything. I just I personally hate guns, like with a passion. And this is all to set the stage for like me watching Augie constantly, constantly play with guns and not real, like not real guns because I don't buy him real guns, right? I mean, obviously not real guns, but you know what I mean?
Like I don't buy him like photorealistic toys that look like guns. Oh, no. Oh, no. Have I ever sent you, like, his Lego creations? Yes.
Shanna
Doesn't he make guns?
Laura
He will make a gun out of literally anything. Okay. I watched him pick a stick up off the ground and it has a little bit of a nub off to the side. He goes, Mama, it's a gun. Okay. Everything. Let me send you a picture I got from school a while back. This is when he was at his old school. Okay. I'm going to send you a picture that I got sent last May from his preschool.
Shanna
Alright, let's see. Oh my gosh! Are those like Duplos or some kind of little building blocks? And that thing looks like a full grown man's rifle in rainbow colors.
Laura
Yeah, can I tell you the context? OK, do you know when I got this? This is it's getting a little dark. I'm sorry. But I literally got this photo while I was on break from being at my friend's murder trial. I went out. No, we couldn't have our phones in the courtroom because it was like a high profile courtroom. We go out, I unlock my phone to check and see if everything's OK with the kids. I see a photo from Augie's class. Let's see. I open it up and he's like, it looks I'm kidding you, not like exactly like how the freaking like bailiff brought out the murder weapon to like show the courtroom. Like he's just stone faced showing this gigantic rifle. And I'm just like, yeah, that's a lot. So Sophia, who asked the question, I'm just I know this was a lot of rambling backstory. I'm here to tell you that I'm in the same boat.
And in my experience, there is nothing you can do to get them to actually stop. There's just something about some kids they like to pretend play with weapons. And it's just their thing. And their friends are going to do it. So if they're if you're banning in your home, they're still going to do it at school. But here's my approach. OK. I tell Augie I don't like guns. I tell both my kids. And if he tries to play guns with me, I tell him I don't play guns. So he'll come up and be like, mama, here I built you a gun out of Duplos or whatever. You want to play? And I say, no, I don't play guns. I'll play something else with you. Mommy doesn't like guns. I'm not going to play with you.
And he picked up on that very quickly, so he will now either pivot with what he's playing if he wants to play with me, or he will just say to Sebastian, it'll be like Sebastian comes up to me and starts going like pew, pew, pew. He goes, mommy doesn't like guns. Mommy doesn't like guns. And so I've set that boundary for me. And one other thing is that sometimes I will say blasters are okay because Star Wars has blasters and they'd be like, why are blasters okay? I'm like, well, they're pretend. That's why they're not real and they don't hurt actual people and my guns are real and they hurt actual people. And he's figured it out. Like he knows it. So I have hope that, you know, he's going to get less interested in gunplay as he gets older and he'll start to understand that it's not, you know, it's not all fun and games necessarily.
I will say the other day, I think he was just parroting me, but Sebastian and he was pissed at Sebastian for something. Sebastian came up to him and was like pew, pew, pew pretending to play guns. And Augie turned to him and said, no, Sebastian, I don't want to play with you. I don't like guns. Oh. So I was like, I know Corey and I looked at each other and were like, since when? But so anyway, that is a long answer to your question. But I feel like setting your own boundaries around the play, making sure that you teach your children about like guns are real guns really hurt people and You know, it's also led to discussions about what to do if you see a real gun. And listeners, I would love to hear from you if you have experience with guns, if you have guns in your own home and you have resources on how to talk to kids about guns and gunplay.
If you, if, you know, our listeners who are gun owners, if they have a different approach to it, I'd love to hear it. I'm totally not closed off about this. And I would really love to hear from our listeners about it. But so good luck, Sophia. Shanna, do your girls play guns at all?
Shanna
No. No, they don't. I have seen them do the handgun, you know, sign like, you know, that kind of thing. And occasionally that'll come up and they'll point that at each other. And I use very similar language to what you do. I say I don't like guns. They are real things that hurt people. And I don't think it's fun or funny to play them. And I say it in a pretty like serious way, you know, a very sober way. And that kind of gets their attention a little bit. Yeah. And I haven't seen them do that very much since.
Laura
That's good. It is one of those interesting like stereotypically gendered things where for whatever reason, boys tend to play guns more than girls. It's just, you know, my boys, they picked it up from so early. Yeah. And Augie didn't even have like a lot of influence. Like he wasn't going to school. I guess he was watching Star Wars. So it had blasters, but still it's it's just interesting what they gravitate to. Yeah. But anyway, enough about that. Should we take a quick break and come back with some more questions? Yeah, I think we should.
Okay, we are back and we have a few more questions from listeners. This one is from Grace. Grace asks, do you ever accidentally call your kids their names from the podcast? Shanna?
Shanna
Well, no. Elle in real life has a nickname that she's had since she was a baby. So that's just, you know, that rolls off the tongue really easily. Cece in real life has a a couple of nicknames. We really don't have one for her. But I will say that for a while, Elle was trying to kind of like come up with a nickname to call her little sister. And she hooked on to Cece. And I quickly was like, please don't, please don't call her that. Like, because I just wanted to make sure that there is a separation, you know, between her real life and the podcast. And so I really discouraged that. and wanted her to come up with something else. And they came up with Kiki, which I think is really cute and doesn't have much to do with her name in real life, but it's really cute. And so sometimes occasionally we'll call her Kiki, but they also know their podcast names.
Like if I make a video with them, you know, that I'm gonna post on, One of our stories, I think I did a few weeks ago, I was like, hey, everybody, I'm here with Ellen Cici and they did not bat an eye. They were just like, yeah, that's us. Some listeners even commented. They're like, wow, they know their podcast names. I'm like, yeah, they do. They're pretty aware of what I do to a certain degree. But yeah, so no, I don't really ever call them those names. What about you, Laura?
Laura
No, I don't. It's interesting to me because I feel like we should mess up more. You know what I mean? Like, I'm always amazed at my ability to just flip a switch and they're Augie and Sebastian. And then I go back to real life and they're real names. And it's like, we don't even mess up on the podcast that much. Like every once in a while, you know what's more common? We mess up with our other kids. I'll mess up with your kids' names and you'll mess up with my kids' names, right? But it's some kind of mental delineation where it's just very clear cut in my mind. When I'm sitting in front of the podcast, Mike, that's their names, right? But I will say that that doesn't really hold true for everyone in our orbit. I will say that my mother-in-law, Sherry, who listens to the show, hi, Sherry. She is always calling your girls by their podcast names.
Shanna
Well, that makes sense.
Laura
Yeah, because she hears more about them on the podcast. You know, she's listening an hour a week about them, right? So she'll like send me a text message and she'll be like, you know, is CECE okay after what happened? And I'll be like, yeah, and I'll respond with her real name, you know? And she'll be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry, wrong name. And then my friend, Alia, who listens to the podcast too. She doesn't really, she doesn't know you. You've interacted with her a few times through the podcast stuff, but you know, she's my friend. So she like didn't know your girl's names. At some point we were texting and she was like, is it weird? Can I just find out what the real names are? I'm like, it's fine. You're my friend. You can know her real name, but she would like message me and ask about CCNL. So, yeah, it's an understandable problem to have.
And I am continuously shocked at how well we manage it.
Shanna
Yeah, yeah, I am too. Not to throw my husband under the bus, but I'm gonna throw him under the bus. We'll often be like, wait, what is that? What's Laura's kid's name again? I'm telling you, I think he gets mixed up in his mind. And we're very good friends. So yeah, it's tricky. That's really funny. All right, next question is from Carrie. Carrie says, how do you handle your kids having close birthdays? My boys are three years apart, but their birthdays fall three weeks apart in January and December.
Laura
Oh, this is a relatable problem, Laura. This is relatable and timely because my boys' birthdays are coming up. They are literally three weeks apart in January and February. And yeah, I was wondering about this, because up until this year, Sebastian didn't really care about his birthday, you know? He was turning two. He was like, they don't know what's going on. But this year, he kind of cares, right? He knows he's turning three and Augie really cares, right? He's turning five. And I'm like, gosh, am I going to throw two birthday parties three weeks apart and like have to make sure they're both equally cool and all this stuff, right? And I thought, why don't we just have one joint birthday party that we just like pour all of our resources into and we can make it extra cool. Like we can have like a balloon artist and a bounce house or whatever, right? Like we can do like all the things.
And I pitched it to the boys and they were on board. So for this year, at least, we're going to do a joint birthday party. It's going to be Star Wars slash Spider-Man themed. Oh, fun. I actually just sent out the invites, Shanna. So check your inbox. Fun. But of course, I just can't like let things be. So I realized that having the joint party in our backyard, I couldn't invite the entire classes from both of their schools to this party because it would be like 250 people would be like a giant wedding situation. And it might rain because it's the middle of January. So I like, you know, need to have the backup for the house. So there's no way. So my solution to this was. I'm also going to throw a very casual birthday gathering at a park on their birthdays, like on their actual birthdays. So they're going to, yeah, but when I say casual, I mean casual.
Like I'm getting some cupcakes and that's it, right? Like I'm getting some cupcakes and inviting people to a park. A park I don't have to like reserve tables at, none of that, right? And all I'm inviting are their classes to that one. So like, Augie's birthday actually falls on a day they have off of school. It's going to still be holiday break for them. It's like a Thursday, but I'm like, whatever. So I'm like, school's out. Let's just do this party. So I'm inviting his whole class to that one. And then none of the other people, like, sorry, you're not coming to that one. Aw, man. But then I get to have a class party that's like inclusive of everyone in his class, but not overwhelming. Yeah. And then I'm going to do the same for Sebastian. I'm just going to be like after school on his birthday, like join us at this park. And, you know, we'll have cupcakes and hang out.
So I think that's what we're going to do. So they each have a little celebration, but the big one is joint.
Shanna
Okay. Wow. I'm impressed that you're solving this problem by having three parties. Yeah, I know, I know. But it'll be fun. I mean, it's always fun to celebrate your kiddos. So I think it'll be fun. Yes.
Laura
And I want them to have their special time, but also like, again, a tablecloth and some cupcakes, which will make Augie upset, but he's going to get presents at the big party. Yeah.
Shanna
Exactly. And people will probably bring presents anyway. So. We'll see how about you your girls are what like six weeks apart something like that yep they're six weeks apart they're both winter babies and that's far enough apart that we do completely separate things CECE just had her fifth birthday party actually and I'll talk about that more in an upcoming episode. But that's just a whole thing. And then come January, we'll do something for Elle. And especially now that Elle's getting older, I can see that what she wants to do is starting to change and who she wants to invite is starting to change. So I think it's definitely going to be different for the two, at least for the next couple of years. But yeah, we just celebrate them separately.
Laura
I feel like we both suffer from the problem of it being too close to the holidays. So it's just this gauntlet of birthdays and holidays. And yeah, but it's sweet. So we'll see. I really don't know if they're going to want to continue doing joint parties for very much longer, but for right now they're happy.
Shanna
Yes, less work for you too, well, except for those two extra parties, but in general, the big party.
Laura
I feel like this was a very Laura Birek situation. I'm trying to make it easier and I make it harder, but there you go. Ah, funny.
Shanna
Well, that is all for this Ask Us Anything mini-sode. We would love to do more of these, so if you have more questions you'd like us to answer on an upcoming mini-sode, definitely reach out. Laura, where can everyone find us?
Laura
We are on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook at BFBpodcast. We have a website, bigfatpositivepodcast.com, and an email address, contact at bigfatpositivepodcast.com. Additionally, you can join our super cool Facebook group, just search Big Fat Positive Community on Facebook.
Shanna
Our show is produced by Laura Birek, Shanna Micko, and Steve Yager. Thanks for listening, everyone. Have a big, fat, positive day. Bye. Bye.