I once overheard my three-year-old having one toy thank another for selling its babies; the second toy replied “Oh, that’s okay.  They were driving me crazy and I needed the money.” I didn’t say anything, but I really, really hope she doesn’t say things like that at preschool! 

As long as other people don’t see this stuff and get the wrong idea about our home life, I’m not overly worried about it-- I feel more or less the way you seem to, and it’s mild compared to the cartoons a lot of kids are allowed to watch.  (And, as long as I don’t think she’d do this sort of thing in “real life,” I also find it darkly hilarious, although I make sure to hide that from her!)

I was actually just reading about this issue last night in the book, Building Healthy Minds. It is so developmentally appropriate and the easiest way to set limits is to incorporate them into her play. And even though her pretend play is much more extreme, it shows that she is responding to the limit setting you place on her in her daily life. It’s a good thing!

These pictures remind me of Jon Stewart’s Gitmo character on the Daily Show. Hilarious.

I’m pretty lax about anything violence that happens within pretend place after reading the great book Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence. I worry more about when kids are totally forbidden to work any of this stuff out through play.

That photo nearly made me spit out my coffee in laughter.

But on a more serious note, I haven’t seen much of this behavior in my toddler yet, other than a few hitting incidents stemming from frustration (he hit me, not another child).  I agree with Amy, in that I think these kinds of situations are helpful in child development, but I’m sure there will be situations where I’ll address it with my son.

Wow...all I can say is, I’m glad I read this post and the responses! I haven’t seen this yet with my toddler; I think I would probably squash this type of stuff with a “that’s not nice.” Now, I’ll be rethinking that. I’ll have to look into these resources! Thanks all!

I’m tempted to say the Elmo has it coming because he doesn’t use pronouns and that drives me crazy! Sometimes I’d like to tie Elmo up and explain that talking about himself in third person does more harm than good. I personally know several toddlers who refer to themselves in third person and won’t break the habit because of Elmo. I wouldn’t poke him in the eye though.