Toys

[ColwynsMommy]

My boys have too many toys. This is mainly because of my parents.. they buy them way too much. These are relatively expensive toys I'm talking about.. giant Star Wars spaceships, stuff like that.

The problem is.. my boys don't take care of their toys at all. We pick up regularly, so that's not really it.. it's more that they deliberately take toys apart, then lose the pieces. We have lots of toys with missing pieces, miscellaneous junk that doesn't go with anything else, Star Wars guys that are missing hands, and so on.

How do you deal with stuff like that? Do you get rid of the compromised toys (I can't say broken, because the parts do easily snap back together if we had them all)? Do you just put all the miscellaneous stuff in bins?

I just get so tired of seeing all these expensive toys in complete disarray and (to me) totally unusable. It's really frustrating, but I'd also feel guilty if I just threw out all of the stuff that was missing pieces.

Thanks for any input or suggestions you can give.

[A Mom's Love]

Isn't it funny how kids develop their own ways of playing with their toys? I would personally allow them to play with the toys in the ways they want to. For me, the issue would be having too many. When dd was younger, I weeded out her toys on my own, donating ones that hadn't been played with in months. DD is either going through a phase right now since we're dejunking to get ready for a move or she'd picked up on the idea that she can give away the toys she no longer wants because now she'll give me stuff out of her room & way I can take it to the thrift store. If your boys toys are broken beyond repair and can't be used by other kids, maybe it's time to ask the grandparents to give less or maybe give a kind of toy that is meant to be taken apart & put back together. HTH.

[DaughterOfKali]

I have some bins that miscellaneous pieces go in. So, if I found pieces that I don't recognize, into the bins they go. I tell ds that if he can't a toy or a piece of a set, to look in the bins.

I remind him that he needs to take care of his toys (and explain what that means.)
I also tell him that if he doesn't, I will donate the toy to someone else who really wants it.

[eepster]

Taking things apart develops all kinds of visual-spacial and mechanical skills.

In the future you might want to steer you parents to buy things that are meant to take apart, such as legos. If you see an old alarm clock in a garage sale, buy it for them to take apart.

[ColwynsMommy]

Originally Posted by eepster

Taking things apart develops all kinds of visual-spacial and mechanical skills.

In the future you might want to steer you parents to buy things that are meant to take apart, such as legos. If you see an old alarm clock in a garage sale, buy it for them to take apart.

We do have lots of Legos, though that causes me frustration, too.. nothing like sitting down for 2 hours to build a complicated Lego set after your kids begged for help, only to have them destroy it two days later. They like SnapCircuits, too. I like the alarm clock (and similar) idea.. I remember taking apart things a lot when I was a kid.

We've done the bins for miscellaneous stuff, but lately the kids have been using the bins to carry around other things (which actually have their own bins, argh), which means all the miscellaneous stuff gets dumped onto the floor, then spread around with all the other toys that are out. It's just a pain to pick up.