So compliments as warfare?

Exactly. Girls' cruelty is much more subtle, even at 5 and 6. It's hard to criticize someone for not complimenting someone. But she knew exactly what she was doing, because as soon as she saw I was watching, she complimented the last girl.

I wonder how much of that has to do with the fear of getting in trouble. Boys have a positive model of the "bad" boy, whereas there doesn't seem to be an equivalent "bad" girl role for girls.

That's true. They can be bad babies. There is always a girl who loves to be a bad baby, and a girl who likes to be the bad baby's mother and spank her as much as possible. Real spanking isn't allowed, of course.

You mentioned that other teachers seemed to believe that boys' pretend gunplay was more serious than girls who would spank their dolls.

I suspect that, as women, we are more comfortable with girls' subtle aggression than we are with boys' active aggression. I've noticed that some male teachers don't have quite the same reactions to violent play -- not that they like the kids being outwardly aggressive toward one another, but I think they are more at home with it. It's not as disturbing to them.

At one point, one mother tells you that she is concerned about the language her daughter is using, and that she sent her daughter to a private school so that she would be around "nice" kids, not bad kids. Did you encounter resistance from parents? Did some of them believe that violent play and explicit language had no place in a "nice" child's life?

Almost every class has a child that children and parents label the "bad boy" or "bad girl." I believe the children find it fascinating to watch and talk about a child who tries to do all the things they would like to do but don't dare try. One child told me, "At dinner my brother told my dad, who's a doctor, that he fell off the top of the climber, so I told them the bad things Susie did in school, and my dad said I can't go to her birthday party, but she's my friend and I want to go to her party."

Often the parents complain to me during conferences about this exciting child, and I believe my job is to show them that it is in their child's best interests to learn how to deal with the wide range of personalities found within the normal range of schoolchildren, rather than to be so protected that they will not know what to do when they meet someone who is different than they are.

I do think that explaining clearly to the parents what I am doing and how their children will benefit is important, especially since what I am doing is unusual.

Jason, the 10-year-old, tells you that he has now reached a point where he knows the line between make-believe and reality, and he says of his father, "He knows I know he knows." At this point, Jason makes an argument for self-regulation of his own TV and video-game watching. Is there such an age? And if so, when is it? How does a parent know that their child knows?

Actually, he was very respectful of his parents' discussions with him about violence and of the rules they had made about his violent video games, which he loved. He respected their requirement that the game be mostly about interaction or skill or something other than violence, though it could have violence in it. They didn't want him playing games where all you did was kill. He understood that.

Jason also said, after Columbine, that he was much more concerned about the violent video games he played than he had been before. And he thought maybe his parents should prohibit him from playing them, although he knew he would be very angry for several months if they made that rule. The important thing about Jason and his violent games was the way that he talked about them with his father. That relationship was important to him, and his father understood his interest, but Jason understood his father's concern.

Jason is a good example of how a child can have an interest in violence but not be a violent human being. He was a very caring boy who thought a lot about the feelings of other children. It's hard to say what's right for everybody. It really does depend on the child. If he was a child who did nothing but play violent video games, and didn't have any friends and didn't talk to his parents, he would have a very different overall picture, and I would be a lot more worried about that child than I was about Jason.

Jason makes the distinction between "purposeful" violence -- such as that in "Amistad," which comes with social content -- and "senseless" or "gratuitous" violence, such as the kind seen in, say, "Anaconda." Is there such a distinction?

Certainly, at his age, he was able to distinguish between movies that were violent just for excitement and stimulation and movies that had a deeper meaning, which he felt "Amistad" had. I don't know that the 5- and 6-year-olds would be able to make that distinction, because they wouldn't be able to tell what was real and what was not real. They wouldn't be able to tell if, say, "Amistad" was a violent fantasy or a historical fiction.

What do you believe is the ultimate effect on children who are punished for their violent fantasies?

First of all, I think they believe they are bad to have them at all. And that's a terrible position for them to be in, because they can't stop their fantasies. If anything, they are likely to have them more intensely after they have been punished. They're not likely to have fewer violent fantasies after being punished. So it can trigger a vicious cycle of negative feelings.

It's also a lost opportunity -- they are not going to be very willing, even if someone asks them, to talk about their fears and their worries, because they've found that it's dangerous to do so. So getting them help may become even harder.

But it depends upon what the rest of the picture looks like. If the 14-year-old writing the story also is surly with teachers, doesn't have a good relationship with his parents, doesn't have friends and seems to be obsessed with violent fantasies, that is a very different picture of a child than one who seems to be getting along well with people and writes one violent story.

If a parent is concerned about a child's violent play, then it would be good to talk to somebody about that. As parents, we know our children, and if they are playing in a way that's new and disturbing, we should trust ourselves and act on that. We should talk to someone -- it could be a teacher we know very well, or a pediatrician or health professional. But I think we should trust that worry and that knowing that something is wrong and get the help we need.

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