These days letting your little boy play enthusiastically with a plastic gun in the local playground is as morally acceptable as giving him a fizzy drink for breakfast or letting him watch Rambo.

Parents tend to divide into two camps: those who enforce a blanket ban on all toy weapons and the rest of us who, as soon as we give in to the first water pistol, find ourselves vulnerable to all sorts of dilemmas. If we allow our son a toy gun at home, can he then take it to the park?

How to explain that one context feels OK but another doesn't? Or that plastic water guns in primary colours are more acceptable than a realistic black plastic Colt from the local toy shop? This speaks of our own fears of social embarrassment as well as young boys' aggression and how we feel when they express it.

As Gaynor Sbuttoni, an educational psychologist who specialises in the emotional needs of young boys, says: “If you withhold guns they will pretend that a stick is a gun. You can't prevent children from experiencing things that they need to experience. They will find another way.”

Penny Holland, an academic leader for early childhood at London Metropolitan University, agrees. “If we lift zero tolerance, gun play can become less crude and part of more extended scenarios,” she says, giving the example of the child who pretends to be shot, falls to the ground and then jumps up again. “It's a cycle constantly played out and relates to separation anxiety; the idea of the parent leaving, being absent and then returning.”

Allowing children to explore these complex themes is crucial, she says. “It is essential to get beyond the knee-jerk reaction. What's important is dialogue and discussion. Parents who buy plastic guns shouldn't be made to feel they're doing something wrong, but they have to be able to help their children understand the difference between fantasy and reality.”

So reassure yourself that letting your son bomb around the garden with a cowboy rifle can be the more responsible and mature option. It means setting boundaries but not being too controlling or judgmental. “When they're letting off steam with guns, they're practising being angry. Somehow they - and we as parents - need to work these feelings through and make them feel it's safe to do so,” says Sbuttoni.

EMMA COOK

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