Buying toys for other boys

I think one of the most powerful yet gentle ways to model appropriate boy behaviour is found at birthday parties. We have to attend a birthday party of a 6 year old who's theme this year is Pokemon(which my boys don't collect, enjoy or otherwise know much about). When we were driving to the store to choose a gift for him, I asked my boys what they thought would be good things to look for. One son said Rescue Heroes and the other said that he didnt know because this particular boy liked shooting toys and scary things. Hmmmmm, out of the mouthes of babes..

Anyhow, I said that we could simply look around and see if anything caught our eye as a great gift.

Do you realize that there was entire aisle dedicated to killing and dominating creatures? A whole aisle! Creepy. We skipped that one. There was another aisle of battery operated games and things. Nothing wrong with that but for a 6 year old, don't you think there might be other options? My sons kept saying, well, if it was *my* birthday, I would like this or that, then they would say "too bad ____ doesn't like that.

I think we did a great job of finding things. We got a cool looking motorboat for the lake, a velcro-paddle game with a sticky ball thing and a dart board with soft tips. Then we chose some funky race car paper and called it good.

If this birthday is anything like last year, the gifts will all range from multipacks of guns to acid spitting violent monster figures-you know, Saturday morning cartoon guys. Our present may get buried under the super soaker box but just may be it will give this little kid a non violent option to play with. One can always hope. If nothing else, it will give MY sons something to play with when we go visit.

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