Should I be concerned?

tunanuna

My almost 4yo was telling his 2yo sister that he was going to chomp up and eat her.  he went on to mention every body part seperately say repeat that he was going to "chomp it up and eat it."  When I called him over and asked what he was saying he finally repeated it to me.  I then asked him how he was going to do it and he said that he was going to cut her up with a saw.                     

This is really troubling me.  Am I over-reacting?  How would you handle such a situation?  Do not watch or read anything with violence in it so I'm not sure where he would put together such an idea.  We of course do have a play saw and his older sister jokes about eating him p because he is so cute.  this just seems on a different level.  Opinions?

sugarp

I wouldn't be concerned (unless of course he started waving a knife around while saying it!) My kids say things like this too, and though it IS troubling to hear, I just remind myself that they really don't understand what they're talking about. I tell my kids firmly to please stop and if that doesn't work, they get a little soap in there mouth.

neverblushed

Hi there -- just dropping in from the school-aged board to snoop around.

It's pretty normal for 4 y/o kids to experiment with aggressive feelings and ideas and also to begin to fantasize about scary stuff like monsters, scary animals, witches, etc.  Pretend play becomes a bit more edgy as kids this age strive to master their own feelings of aggression and conquer their fears.  Kids will work hard in their play to be the biggest, scariest thing they can imagine -- because in their secret heart of hearts that big, scary thing is coming after them!! 

And I don't want to over-generalize things, but in my own home, and from watching my friends' kids, I have noticed that when little boys go through this phase, they tend to be very focused on weapons, and they tend to be more "outward" with their aggressive play.  This seems to be true regardless of the child's exposure to violent images in media.  At this age, they haven't developed much of a filter, and they don't realize how shocking it sounds to adults when they say things like "I'm going to saw my sister up into little pieces and eat her."  My son's own famous line from that stage was, "The cat's being naughty.  We should spank him.  With an axe."

I just responded to over-the-top statements like that from my son with, "Wow -- that's not a very nice thing to say.  I know you're just playing, but that still sounds very mean.  Maybe you can pretend something nice for a while."

But not to worry -- it's a pretty normal thing.

mrsblueeyes

I feel a little more reassured after reading these posts.  My almost 3 1/2 year old ds has been saying "I hope he/she/it died now"  after he's told something he doesn't like to hear, like "stop screaming,  your sister's taking a nap"  I really don't feel like he understand what dying is.  We respond the same way.  I try to not get upset and say "that's not a very nice thing to say, maybe you can try to say something a little nicer" 

franciscaz

I probably annoy people here b/c I'm a bit of a prude when it comes to not a lot of TV and no violent stuff; but even I wouldn't be concerned by that.  We read a book "Mouse Count" and the snake says "I'm going to eat you little warm and tasty..." so I could see your kid picking it up from something like that and not really understanding that he would hurt his sister.  Harmon always tells my nanny and I he will eat us while we sleep.  It is just from the book.

Mama Jan

DS1 occasionally says things to DS2 like "I'm going to throw you in the street and leave you there so you get runned over!"  It does bother me and I usually respond like other pp have said ("That doesn't sound very nice - how would that feel if he did that to you?").  I'm relieved to see how normal it is in 3-4yo though!

FeedTheCrocs

Totally normal for sure.  DD and I had a whole conversation on the way home last night about how we were going to cook and eat various body parts (fried eyeballs anyone?).