five year old boy!

[Happytobehere]

I am wondering what is normal for a 5 year old boy. Mine just started Kindergarten, and is pretty wonderful to me (of course lol). He does like the normal boy things (monsters, guns, fighting, and he also likes fish hahaha). He is also a very affectionate boy so I like to think he is well rounded. Anyways today at school at end of day the teacher came to me and told me he is in some trouble today because he said at recess he was going to kill 2 teachers. I am not sure even how to appraoch this.. I tried to explain to him even though people kill on "star wars" and whatnot it isn't real. REAL stuff is final and serious business. He will be doing without star wars and whatnot, but I am wondering, is this weird?! It seems to me kids he plays with act quite alike, maybe their parents taught them more boundaries at school? Also, I wonder if anyone has some good disipline for things like this, or ways to teach them how to behave at school. Explaining (I worry) isn't enough? I don't know, what do YOU think?

[jgirlnumber6]

Don't worry,
he's absolutely a 5y.o., you will be repeating your speach many times over the next 5 years. At this age kids really don't have an awareness
of mortality.

[lyndafaye]

happytobbehere I would not stop him watching star wars and other shows which he enjoys.
Instead watch them with him. If you are there watching with him you can explain things you feel he is misunderstanding.
If you ban them he will not learn the difference between imagination and reality.
One way of explaining death and pain in cartoons would be to buy a comic book. Then cut out some of the bad guys and cut them up into small pieces. They are then dead. Pull out an identical book and show that they are still there.
Explain that since they are not real they can be made alive again and again. But if an animal or person is dead they cannot be brought back to life.
Also let him know that he can tell you anything and he will not be punished. Then he will feel safe telling you when he is angry at a teacher or friend and won't say inappropriate things at school. But his anger and frustration will have a safe place to be brought out into the open.
Give him ways to vent his anger. punch a pillow, teach him to bake bread that has to be punched down. run around the block a few times. When he is old enough write a story about the person he is angry at.
These do work as I used them on my sons. The bread one is great as they have a loaf of bread or a pizza at the end.
You will be repeating your speech and lessons many times over their life time but by keeping the lines of communication open and age appropriate you will have a great child in the end and the middle.

[Happytobehere]

Thanks guys. I do completely let him be himself at home. I do mmeake it clear what he can say and do more at school, it is a learning process. This is my firstborn so I learn a bit everyday, I just think the teacher had over reacted a little trying to make me feel it was my shortcoming that my kindergarten child was behaving like that. I do not see it being so bad now, he just had to hear "you don't talk like that at school" and he was okay. I mean, they have a rule about no touching at all at school too, and my son is affectionate, it has been hard for him to not hug people after school lol. You could call that a shortcoming (at the school) or possibly that he has a healthy amount of love in his heart... anyways, thank you for the feedback

[bracas5]

I had a similiar experience when my now 15yr old son was about 6. He is also a very caring well-rounded person (& I'm not biased...), but got in trouble for saying some things like the things your son said. We talked about it, and I told him if he was feeling mad about something to write or draw about it instead. So he drew a picture of a classmate, dead, and showed it to her...Well, that opened up another kettle of fish. Kids need some way to express their feelings. I remember saying "I'm going to kill you", but not meaning that I actually wanted to kill the person, just venting. So I had to tell my son that he could express himself by drawing, just don't show it to anyone!! I think maybe the political correctness pedulum has swung too far in the other direction.

[Phamilton]

I wouldn't worry too much about that statement coming from a 5 year old, who has little concept of real death. It's good that the teacher mentioned it to you, so you can discuss it with him. My 5 yr old boy is rough & tumble (ie all boy) & used to hit random adults for no reason other than perhaps thinking it's cute, but it was a phase fortunately. Last weekend he pulled the fire alarm at our church building so that was also another lesson learned!!!

[ovesna2009]