Let me paint the scene, it is the September school holidays and hubby and the kids are pulling into the driveway and instead of turning towards the garage they park straight in the driveway facing the front door – hubby was wearing a empty paper bag with eye hole cut outs. Needless to say I had 3 Nerf guns shooting at me as soon as the car stopped.  Luckily, the kids aren’t the best shots and hubby wasn’t aiming for my head.

That was my introduction to Nerf guns and lets just say it is quite perversely pleasurable to shoot the children.  As I found out when Master 6 deciding listening was optional.  Possible new discipline tool? Maybe.

Anyway, now that we have Nerf guns in the house, something I tried to avoid due to the high risk of serious and permanent eye injury.  Hubby and I have created the Nerf gun rules:

  1. The children are not allowed to play with the Nerf guns without supervision (it helps that they are hidden, so the kids can’t find them – or at least they haven’t so far)
  2. Eye protection in the form of safety glasses or wraparound sunglasses must be worn.
  3. No one can take shots at a person without eye protection, or when an unprotected person is within shooting range.

The reason that we have the rules around this toy is that it has a high velocity projectiles, that is small enough to fit in the eye socket.  All of these factors contribute to increased risk of serious eye injury.   

The cost of children’s safety glasses is minimal and the fact that you do not then have to worry about permanent eye injury is wonderfully liberating.  Our motto is ‘Play safe’, we want kids to play and parents not have to worry about serious consequences.

I enjoy going to ‘war’ with the kids, it is a fun way to release a bit of frustration, while they learn about strategy and teamwork.