You ever notice how people have a different greeting for very small children than their standard greeting for adults? It's usually "gimme fiveeeee" accompanied by an open hand, or some guys go "gotcher nose!" after they pinch the kid's nose and show them their thumb. Some are a little more subtle, like ruffling their hair, or poking their belly and saying "boop boop". It would be cool if we greeted each other like that.
When the situation requires the person to interact with the child longer than their basic greeting, what people do is really quite shocking if you think about it long enough. It usually takes a form of tickling or general pestering with a sound effect. The funny part, is the thing many people are acting out look like euphenisms for the most horrific concepts of the human imagination.
I've watched people introduce to my son concepts & things such as cannibalism, decapitation, electricution, machine gun assassination, zombies, body mutilation, kidnapping, and so on.
We all do it, Fil's uncle pretends to take his head off and throw it across the room.
A friend of ours makes it look like he's being electricuted.
My Dad does the machine-gun-shooting war planes when he tickles him. He goes "EEEEeeeerrrrrrrrr DAT DA DAT DAT DADADADADADA DAT DAT DAT" while his pointer fingers poke Fil all over his chest furiously.
I'm not bringing this up to necessarily say I disapprove of people playing games with my son. I'm guilty of it too. Sometimes, Fil will call me over and over, and I'll respond with a face intended to scare him.
My sister tries to scare him by saying his name in a really deep vibrato voice. Fil gets scared for a second, and then laughs.
I started thinking, where did I come up with that face? What is my sister imitating when she says his name like that? I started asking questions like that whenever I see someone playing with him.
Basically, we're just exposing him to a 'fun' version of extreme peril or way of dying. I've never seen a zombie movie, and don't intend to, but somehow, my inclination is to pretend I AM one when I'm playing with my son. My sister naturally does a ghost/monster voice.
It's just strange that most people would not approve of their 3-year-old seeing a movie, or even listening to a story about these extreme things. However, it's almost natural to imitate it through play. Maybe it's just how kids learn the concept of danger through an extreme example in a safe enviroment.
Or maybe there's just a bunch of sick people in Fil's life.
