Dolls and Guns

Dolls and Guns
by Gerri Thompson

Do you think it's appropriate to have teen fashion dolls in your child care facility for the children to play with?

Do you think it's appropriate for the children in your child care facility to play with pretend guns?

If you can answer either of these questions quickly, then perhaps you don't consider either of them to be an ethical dilemma. When asked the question "Do you want the red ball or the blue ball?" most of us answer without much thought because there is no ethical component. For a question with an ethical component, we should be taking a lot more time. The trick lies in recognizing whether there is an ethical component.

For the questions about fashion dolls and guns, values and beliefs will often influence any decision made. For example, if you believe that fashion dolls have impossible figures that no person could live up to, and if you believe that children already are exposed to models that the vast majority of people could never look like, then those beliefs may influence you to keep teen fashion dolls out of the child care environment. If you value the creative process that children go through in pretend play and you want them to be able to use dolls to act out what they may be seeing in part of their world of teenage siblings, friends and relatives, then you may want to allow fashion dolls.

Similarly, if you value non-violence and peaceful living then you may want to forbid playing with guns at your facility. However, if you live on a military base, where children have parents who use guns as part of their careers, or if you have children of police officers or other similar professions, perhaps you would want to allow the children to play with pretend guns and do some teaching about safety and peacekeeping. What may have seemed like a simple decision suddenly becomes more complicated when we start considering all the possible values and beliefs involved. In making a choice about an ethical dilemma, one of the first steps is to consider the values and beliefs involved.

As an emerging profession, early childhood educators are bound by a Code of Ethics. This is another tool that can help us to make decisions in ethical dilemmas. The Code is not intended to give hard and fast rules about how to act in any given situation. Rather, it is intended to give some professionally accepted principles, which should help to guide us in our decision-making. The second principle in the Code of Ethics, in part, says that we must ensure "…environments carefully planned to serve individual needs and to facilitate the child's progress in the social, emotional, physical, and cognitive areas of development". This principle could either support or disallow the use of fashion dolls or pretend guns, depending upon the previously discussed beliefs and values about their use. Clearly the Code does not give us a rule. We still must base our decision on a number of other factors including consideration of the values and beliefs of all stakeholders and the effect such play may have on all stakeholders.

Other principles ask us to support parents and to work in partnership with colleagues. Each of their perspectives should provide some influence in the way we make our choices. We can see that whatever decision is made, we would be acting within the Code. Considering the Code keeps us from jumping to a conclusion and ensures that we have considered as many relevant factors as possible.

Ultimately, a choice has to be made. We have to choose which value, belief, and/or principle will be given primacy based on all the knowledge that we are able to gain within whatever time frame we have to make the decision. Over time, it may become apparent that decisions made were right or wrong and we can change. In the short term, we have to be satisfied that we made the choice based on consideration of the information to which we had access at the time. We also made an ethically sound choice based on the principles of the Code of Ethics that have been accepted by early childhood educators across the country.

Talk these dilemmas over with your colleagues. Did they answer so quickly that they couldn't have taken time to consider the question as an ethical dilemma? Discuss the ethical choice-making process. Consider taking some ethical training in your next professional development session. Perhaps you'll discover new ethical decision-making strategies in making your best choice.

Gerri Thompson is an instructor at Assiniboine Community College in Brandon, Manitoba and an ethics trainer with the Manitoba Child Care Association.

Interaction, Vol. 16, No. 2, Summer 2002, p. 15-16.