Professional organizations have influenced early childhood practice when considering
exposure to fighting and war toys. For example, developmentally appropriate practice,
the initiative by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC),
supports and encourages the presence of certain forms of uniforms and images in the
classroom, yet bans weapons and actions symbolic of, or believed to glorify, violence.
Educator training and development often does not delineate playful aggression from
serious aggression perpetuated by the aspiration to decrease violence in all forms13 and
promote legislative efforts for the standardization of manufacturing physically and
psychologically safe commercial toys.14 For example, Watson and Peng15 suggest that toy
gun play is not associated with many positive behaviours, while Fry16 noted that play
fighting and serious fighting can be categorized into separate types of behaviour in young
children. Hellendoorn and Harinck17 differentiated play fighting as make-believeaggression
and rough-and-tumble since playful aggression should not be considered real
aggression. Educators may discourage or ban play fighting and war toys because they
perceive the play fighting as detrimental to child development rather than beneficial3,4,8
and the war toys as symbols of violence.