Although I don’t purchase gory video games with decapitated heads and blood spurting from torso’s, my son has a couple of shoot-em-up games in his collection. Like any boy, he has a few toy guns in his toy box, and like’s playing with loud, obnoxious, rat-tat-tat type toy guns. In a prior post I mentioned that my son was adamant about wanting to go hunting and bagging him some game; It didn’t matter what. In that post I also mentioned that I am not a hunter. (I’ll eat anything, but I don’t like the waiting in the bushes at 4am, paying for the license, paying for the slaughter, etc…)
A few weeks ago we were in the yard doing some work when our dogs started barking and jumping at the base of an evergreen tree. There was a rustle in the branches and a very young, flightless, pigeon chick fell out of the tree. One of our dogs pounced on the chick and snapped its neck before I could rush over to protect it. My son rushed over excitedly to see the chick and saw life ebbing from its little body. He started to sob and berate the dogs for being cruel.
I took this opportunity to explain the facts of life, including life spans of different types of animals, and humans, in ways he could grasp and comprehend. I explained animal instincts, predator vs. prey, and the need for there to be predators to cull herds and keep the balance in nature. I also made him understand that, although they were pets, our 2 German Shepherd mixes were still predators, and they didn’t know any better. I hoped to curb my son’s curiosity about going hunting, and this little episode seemed to have done it. (WOO-HOO!)
I usually take every opportunity to turn little things that happen around us into impromptu learning sessions. It usually works out well, and the lesson, if done right, usually lasts a while, if not forever. I usually get complimented by teachers and friends about my kids knowing a wide variety of information because of this.
The Mistake: A few days ago a local park in the middle of the city was in the news regarding a controversial deer hunt being allowed in the park by the city (loaded guns in close proximity to housing and general population). Car-Deer accidents are plentiful around the park because the deer population is ridiculously large due to the lack of predation. My son asked me about predation, and I explained the “circle-of-life” and the fact that the deer’s circle seems to be more of an arc, and that man has taken the place of the wolf, but that man only takes deer during a small portion of the year, while wolves prey on deer all year long. He understood more than I thought.
Back to Square One: Now my son wants to hunt again, but now only for deer. He sees it as doing his part for the community (*sigh). I wish he wasn’t so civic minded.
Mmm, venison…
Roadkill Hunting:
1) Drive a 5 mile stretch of road at midnight and make a chalk outline of every dead deer you come across.
2) Go home and set your alarm for 5am.
3) Drive the same stretch of road when you get up at 5am. Any dead deer without a chalk outline is “fresh” and may be taken home for consumption.
(Shudder)
Its kinda hard to make it sound bad to a kid I guess, especially a boy. Just take the lad fishing and do some laser tag and when he is older paint ball. Good post.
We go fishing every summer, and we enjoy it immensely. I still ahve to bait his hook, but he showed some interest in doing that this past summer, so there’s hope.
He’s going “Laser Tagging” with some friends a few weekends from now, and I would love for him to be old enough to play paintball so I could go too. Unfortunately I’ll be in my mid/late forties by then. Hopefully I’m still spry enough to play.
Yikes! I wonder if my little guy will ever want to hunt some day. I sure hope not! LOL! We live in Michigan where it seems like everyone hunts. I once asked someone if “points” on a deer were based on it’s weight. I got laughed at. For the record, it has something to do with the antlers…I’m still a little foggy about what. Anyway, I wonder if you showed your son some hunting shows on TV if that would help. Just a thought.
If the kid is interested, find a responsible sportsman to take him hunting for first hand experience. You shouldn’t restrict an interest from your son simply because you don’t like it. That’s being selfish and should be letting him find his own identity, not yours.
@SWC,
“… I wonder if you showed your son some hunting shows on TV if that would help.”
Oh I’m sure it would help; help add to his longing for the day he can go hunting that is. I think the only thing that would curb this would be for him to actually take an animal down, then eat it.
@JibberJabber,
It’s in the works, although I don’t know how responsible a sportsman this individual is (he eats roadkill). I’m thinking of sending my son hunting with this coworker of mine who, oddly enough, thinks like you do. It’ll be fun to watch this guy return my son after an hour because my son was tired, or was bored, or had to pee, or made to much noise, or scared the deer off, or………..(fill in the blanks yourself. My son is 8 and isn’t ready for this.)
Maybe I’ll send my son along with his little Nintendo DS to keep him occupied.