My oldest, and closest friend came to visit me yesterday. We don’t see each other often because she’s in another state. She brought her children with her.
My daughter was playing with her little dollhouse. She’s got some little dollhouse people that go with it. One of the little people are weird looking, I’m not sure why. My daughter likes this little guy anyway.
My friend’s son went over to the dollhouse and said that he didn’t like the weird looking guy, ripped it’s head off and stuffed it in the fireplace of the doll house and said it was the best way to get rid of him.
My daughter is quite a bit older, she wasn’t happy, but she just put the doll away and brought it to me this morning to fix. I didn’t see this happen, this is what she told me happened to the doll.
My friend’s son is six years old. Do you think this is somewhat normal behavior? I’m almost afraid he’s showing some really violent tendancies with this.
I dunno…kids will do shocking stuff like that. Hopefully a parent or other adult will call them on it and that’s how they learn what is not acceptable. I wouldn’t “worry” about it in the psycho-animal-torturing-future-serial-killer sense.
It’s mildly creepy, but I remember being six years old, and I did the occasional weird or creepy thing. I think that this is where parenting comes in, right? When your kid does something like this, you tell them it’s wrong, I would assume that you explain why, if possible, and dole out appropriate consequences. At the very least, he deliberately destroyed your daughter’s toy. If I were to have a kid (say, 20 years from now) that alone would be enough to earn a Time Out, maybe some other consequences as well.
As for the creepy factor, I was not too well socialized at six years old. I’ve turned out okay, I think. I have good parents :).
Uh. Though, I never did anything as weird as ripping the head off of a doll and stuffing it into the fireplace and explaining it as “the best way to get rid of him.” I’ll actually revise my “mildly creepy” assessment to “certifiably creepy,” but I would not be worried… yet… if this is the only time this has happened. But tell your friend what her kid did! He IS six years old. He’s still got lots of time to “learn the ropes” of living in a civilized world.
I would say that was very rude of the boy but otherwise completely normal. He should have known not to damage other people’s things. OTOH, that is what little boys do with dolls. They throw them, launch them, break them, crash them, mutilate them, and blow them up (if there are any fireworks around). Little boys generally don’t play with dolls the same way little girls do (I can get you some studies if you want).
Boys can be violent sometimes. My husband blew up frogs and plastic army men with firecrackers when he was a kid. He didn’t grow up to be a psycho killer. Not yet, anyway.
If he wanted the best way to get rid of the doll, he should have shaved the head, pulled out the teeth, and brought it to the little toy pig farm at sloppin’ time.
The little guy obviously had a strong reaction to the weird looking dolly. COmbined with perhaps a recent retelling of Hansel and Gretel (Gretel tricks the witch into oven, and slams the door) he knew just how to dispatch the freaky killer doll.
My just turned 7 yo daughter has a male Bratz doll, its naked and she tightly wrapped a rubber band around his torso and groin.
My mom once found, in the bottom of my kid sisters’ misc toy bin, a Ken doll head inside one of those plastic bubble things that you get toys in from quarter machines. It tickled her so much she put it up on the kitchen window sill, but the kids never did tell us what prompted it.
He should be taught not to damage other people’s things. Other than that, he’s just playing, I wouldn’t expect him to turn into a serial killer or anything, unless he does a lot of other weird stuff.
I knew a girl that told me when she was little (7?) she and her sister thought the next door neighbor was evil. So they removed the heads from many Barbies and spiked them on the fence that seperated the properties. This was to scare him off.
We used to take a magnifying glass and “bubble” the skin of dolls. The point was to intentionally make them look grotesque. They’d look like leper took a shower in acid when we were done with them.
We’re all somewhat well adjusted adults, well, at least compared to psychopaths.
Exactly. An aware parent or other adult needs to step in and deal with this. If he does something like this with someone he just met, it is frightening to think how he behaves with regular friends and their toys.
