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Do you let your kids do whatever they want to their toys?

1K views 25 replies 23 participants last post by  Shane 
#1 ·
Do you let your child do whatever s/he wants to his/her toys or other belongings? For example, is it okay to color on them or cover them with stickers? Do you have limits about this? I think it's important to let kids have freedom to be creative and, after all, they are their toys. OTOH, I also think it's important to teach kids to respect things and to learn how to properly take care of things. I think we're striking a healthy balance between the two around here, but wondering what other families do. Any thoughts?
 
#2 ·
We haven't dealt with "decorating" toys yet, but I'm sure that will be popping up here soon. What we do deal with though is pounding, throwing and general abuse of toys. Ds has really been into this type of behavior lately, and that is something that we try to stop. We have certain toys that are ok for him to bang on (like his tool bench/hammer or his bingo bed).

I think, personally, if he started coloring his toys that I might try to focus his coloring efforts onto something like a piece of paper. I'd hate for him to go over to a friend's house and start coloring on his buddy's toys or something.
 
#3 ·
This is somethign I have been thinking about a lot lately. I am with you on wanting to let my son express himself creatively and use his toys the way he wants. But it bothers me to see him doing things to them that I wouldn't like. For instance, he wanted to bring a stuffed animal outside yesterday, and then proceeded to throw it around in the dirt. I did intervene and suggested that the toy go back inside because he was cold. I think, most likely, I will tend to lean more towards preserving the intactness of his toys on this issue.
 
#4 ·
I won't let dd color on her toys due to I wouldn't want her to go to a friends and think she can do the same to their toys. However if she wants to take them outside and get them dirty she can. I guess it depends on your comfort levels.
 
#5 ·
We try to be flexible, because it promotes natural and creative play. But yes, we also have limits. But we explain WHY with every limit.

"You can't take the sticks inside. They are covered in dirt and mud. But you can leave them right here, outside the door, and next time you come out they will be right here and you can play with them again."

"Do not throw legos. They put marks in the floor." (DH)
"Do not throw legos. They can hit mommy or DD and that really hurts." (me)
 
#6 ·
We went to an art class today and I was surprised by how "nice" all the other rabbits were. I think ours was the only one where mama didn't take a lead in decorating it. I do think it's important to let kids have their creative outlets.

On the other hand, it costs money to replace/repair toys. I agree with the idea of what happens when your child goes to someone else's house.

So, I'd also direct the child to more appropriate places for doing artwork. I'm all into creativity, but I'm also into teaching real world. So, the wooden tool bench is pretty beaten up--it's amazing how much damage you can do with a plastic saw. The wood work around my doorways has been set as off limits to saws-even plastic ones.

We all have to fine our fine line.
 
#7 ·
For me, it depends on the toy. If it is a cheap plastic thing that I wish wasn't in the house, I am generally less protective of it than a nice toy. I wouldn't let me dd cut or otherwise destroy her favorite doll but I didn't care much when she broke a super cheapo plastic car that someone gave her. She is not generally destructive so it hasn't been a big problem but I agree that you have to strike a balance between letting them do what they want to their own things and also teaching that we don't break or otherwise destroy things - it is wasteful for one thing.
 
#8 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by berkeleyp View Post
For me, it depends on the toy. If it is a cheap plastic thing that I wish wasn't in the house, I am generally less protective of it than a nice toy.
This is part of my dilemma, as we don't do plastic, except for Lego Duplos and sandbox toys, so everything is fairly expensive, relatively speaking...
 
#10 ·
I've been debating about this lately too. DS has a book that he absolutely loves and every time he looks at it, there will be another tear in the pages. This is the only non board book that I allow him to look at without an adult. I've put all of his other non board books out of reach and I pull them out regularly to read with him, but I put them back as soon as we're done (books are expensive!). His favorite book is covered in tape. I feel like I should just laminate it and save myself from having to continuously repair it.

My general rule about toys is that he can play with them as he wants unless his type of playing would hurt someone or something. I don't usually make a distinction with expensive toys vs. cheap toys because DS isn't old enough to understand why he can bang his plastic truck but not his wooden one.
 
#11 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by AllisonR View Post
"Do not throw legos. They put marks in the floor." (DH)
"Do not throw legos. They can hit mommy or DD and that really hurts." (me)
"Do not throw legos. They get scattered all over the floor and I step on them with my bare feet in the middle of the night. And that makes me very unhappy."



I "let" my kids put stickers on their sliding closet doors, and ds put stickers all over his bedroom door, before I knew what they were doing. If they'd asked I'd have said no. But now the stickers are there. I let them stay. It makes their rooms look like kid rooms. They'll come off someday. They are kind of ugly, though. :grumblegrumble:
 
#13 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Swirly View Post
I have allowed dd to color her potty and some of her toys, as the crayon is washable. But now you ladies haveme thinking about whether that is good to allow, because I would not want her to do it at someone else's home.
For what it's worth, in my experience most kids are pretty quick to figure out that different places = different rules. At home, my kids run around half naked a lot, but I can take them to friends' houses and they don't start shedding clothes inappropriately (well, there was that one time last summer with the wading pool, but that was totally understandable.)

I tend to be pretty relaxed about what my kids do with their own toys and such, but I have some sort of hangup about books and it upsets me if those are abused or defaced. I also try pretty hard to keep the kids from messing up each others' things. If my five-year-old is doing something to his own toy that I think will likely ruin it, I usually just warn him about what might result ("If you do that, it'll probably break.") If it's my toddler, and it's a "special" toy, I'll step in. I don't think he is able to understand the aftermath of giving his Bear that he sleeps with every night a bath in the toilet bowl, or whatever, yk?
 
#14 ·
I tend to lean strongly towards the "do whatever you want with your own toys" side of things.

Two exceptions: throwing stuff at people/ animals is NOT ok. Throwing heavy stuff at glass/ something that could shatter (or really, any kind of destruction that could shatter glass) is NOT ok.
Safety is important. We have large and small soft balls to throw instead.

Stickers on stuff? Does not bug me in the slightest. There are Elmo stickers all over the back porch right now... whatever. He was so happy playing with them!

Crayons on things... that's a fine line. If he colored his things, he might also start coloring my things. So, I direct crayons to paper.
 
#15 ·
Okay, I admit, I was an only child and took care of my things. It's made me a little bit of a stickler for it as a parent. I want our children to learn to respect their things and respect other people's things. With 3 kids, so many of their things are shared or passed down, and I want things to be in somewhat good condition. We compromise in our family by having "indoor toys" and "outdoor toys." The boys track enough dirt and gunk into the house without dragging toys in from outside that are also covered with crap that will fall off and make the house even dirtier. When one of our children wants to take a toy outside, we make sure that he wants to make it an "outside toy" that stays outside. The same goes with Playdoh cars and toys (we learned that one that hard way--after many sessions with cars and Playdoh, the Playdoh would dry and fall out of the car EVERYWHERE). Sure, I'm a little neurotic, but it works for us. They have a great time with their toys and don't seem to mind a little bit of boundary.

I contrast this with a cousin of mine, whose child is allowed to take his things anywhere and do anything. His toys are trashed (which is fine if it's just him) but he transfers that attitude to other people's things. He's extremely rough with not just our kids' toys but also any relatives house, climbing over furniture, playing with forbidden stuff (Grandmother's house, fragile stuff) and my cousin's solution is to excuse her child's behavior as "just being a kid." Kids are kids, they're rough and tumble and it's great, I agree, but I think that children also need to learn how to respect other people's things. Gotta run, baby is in the cat food again...
 
#16 ·
I strongly believe in teaching our ds respect for all things, living and non-living things. There are things that have a creative purpose, like papers and cardboard boxes and crayons, markers, chalk, chalkboards, etc. I am a VERY creative person, an artist (painter, jewelry maker, and photographer) and I believe in self expression, but with respectable limits. It's not ok to draw with mommy's lipstick, it's not ok to put stickers all over our belongings, it's not ok to tear books.....but within the spectrum of "allowables", he can do whatever he wants. I will never limit his ideas, he can go outside the box in many ways. We take old shoe boxes and sticker-them-up, we use old shipping boxes as houses, paper is cut, decoupaged, drawn on, folded into origami....but destruction or defacement isn't in the scope of "creative", it's just downright disrespectful and they don't know it, if we don't teach it. Just my two cents!

Jessica
 
#17 ·
My kids go to a Montessori school, so at home, I do try to continue the "appropriate use" rule. If I find that my toddler is wanting to color on inappropriate things (his favorites have been the windows and the TV), I get out the easel and big roll of paper to use to do "big coloring". When my DD was making faces on all of her building blocks, I asked her to stop, and then we went out and got her some unfinished blocks and paints so that she could "make" ger own face blocks without messing up the finished ones we already had.
As they get older, I get more lenient. But I try to stick with "appropriate use" for consistency's sake, and urge them to channel their creativity elsewhere.
 
#18 ·
I lean to the "don't break your toys or you won;t have them to play with anymore" school of thought. Many of the toys we buy for DS are things that he will be able to play with for years if they don't get destroyed now.

I think that my own childhood experiences have heavely influenced the way I am now. I was the youngest of 3, so I had to live with what my older sister did to toys. One sister just tended to be careless with stuff so any shared toys got ruined and beaten up fast. The other sister would deliberately wreck toys that were mine.

BTW: the sister who was careless with her toys is now very careless with all her things. She goes through couches and vacuums and such at an alarming rate.
 
#19 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by mommy2Grayson View Post
I strongly believe in teaching our ds respect for all things, living and non-living things. There are things that have a creative purpose, like papers and cardboard boxes and crayons, markers, chalk, chalkboards, etc. I am a VERY creative person, an artist (painter, jewelry maker, and photographer) and I believe in self expression, but with respectable limits. It's not ok to draw with mommy's lipstick, it's not ok to put stickers all over our belongings, it's not ok to tear books.....but within the spectrum of "allowables", he can do whatever he wants. I will never limit his ideas, he can go outside the box in many ways. We take old shoe boxes and sticker-them-up, we use old shipping boxes as houses, paper is cut, decoupaged, drawn on, folded into origami....but destruction or defacement isn't in the scope of "creative", it's just downright disrespectful and they don't know it, if we don't teach it. Just my two cents!

Jessica
:
 
#20 ·
Ok what about how your dc plays with toys. Specifically if dc takes their doll and throws it down or hits it. Do you let it be because its not a living thing or do you say things like 'oh poor dolly, that will hurt dolly' etc.

My mom and I have debates about this as she will say the 'poor dolly' but I'm more about, he can do that to a doll, let out the aggression if he wants to, but that would never be allowed on a real person.

I also notice that because I let him hit his doll, he doesn't really do it, where as he will do it more around my mom to get the reaction.

I also don't mind stickers, but drawing is only done on paper. Only balls are thrown.
When I was 4 my friend drew purple eyelashes on my Cabbadge Patch Doll. My mom was pissed! And I never played with that doll after that, I guess I felt it was ruined
I really took care of my stuff and still do.
 
#21 ·
I only limit her approach to her toys when it's dangerous to her or us or when she's going to do damage to something that ISN'T hers. (Or to protect a favorite toy, as a pp said--I can't even think about what would happen if she accidentally destroyed her stuffed crab!) As far as books, she tears out pages once in a while, but for an 18-month-old I think she does remarkably well at taking care of them. I would rather have her have a stack of books all the time than feel like I have to police them, and that goes for her other toys too. Things like coloring on them or stickers I would not worry about.

Now, drawing on the walls (which was a brief and heartily-discouraged fad about a month ago) is not okay, partly because of the question of how she would handle crayons at someone else's house. (My husband loves the wall scribbles and I don't think we'll be cleaning them off anytime soon.)
 
#22 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by dawncayden View Post
Ok what about how your dc plays with toys. Specifically if dc takes their doll and throws it down or hits it. Do you let it be because its not a living thing or do you say things like 'oh poor dolly, that will hurt dolly' etc.

My mom and I have debates about this as she will say the 'poor dolly' but I'm more about, he can do that to a doll, let out the aggression if he wants to, but that would never be allowed on a real person.

I also notice that because I let him hit his doll, he doesn't really do it, where as he will do it more around my mom to get the reaction.
It bothers me to see dolls deliberately hurt, like when dd's say "I'm squishing baby.". But that might be my own thing. I tell them that I don't like to see the dolls hurt and if I'm playing with them at the time I say "If you want to play squishing the dolls, I don't want to stay and play because it bothers me." Sometimes they choose to stop and play with me and sometimes they want to continue playing squish the baby (or whatnot).

I have some safety rule related to toys; only soft things can be thrown, walk with sticks, no banging toys on the windows.

I also have a few care-and-keeping rules: draw on paper, rip paper in your paper drawer, library books are not for walking on, favorite toys stay home

If it can't cause permanent damage (stickers can't) or injury then it's mostly up to them.
 
#23 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by mehndi mama View Post
My kids go to a Montessori school, so at home, I do try to continue the "appropriate use" rule. If I find that my toddler is wanting to color on inappropriate things (his favorites have been the windows and the TV), I get out the easel and big roll of paper to use to do "big coloring". When my DD was making faces on all of her building blocks, I asked her to stop, and then we went out and got her some unfinished blocks and paints so that she could "make" ger own face blocks without messing up the finished ones we already had.
As they get older, I get more lenient. But I try to stick with "appropriate use" for consistency's sake, and urge them to channel their creativity elsewhere.
this is the best comment on here....not just because I use the term "appropriate use" also but because it is good to show them where to channel their creativity. I mean graffiti artists are simply being creative but I don't think they should do it on bridges and concrete walls along the freeway...it's just not appropriate.

Now letting a child use a toy as something other than what it was intended for is allowing creativity....letting them color and mark it up, apply stickers, etc. is destructive.
 
#24 ·
It's not really come up much here yet. That said I think I'll be redirecting coloring to paper rather than toys. For one thing we have very few toys which belong strictly to one or other of the children and I don't feel that "decorating" shared toys is appropriate.

I do expect some wear and tear in the general playing to happen though. I expect the pound a ball thing to look a bit beaten up but I ask them not to use the wooden hammer on other toys. I might remind them to turn the pages carefully but I don't give them special books that would upset me to see destroyed.

We do have plenty of time to be creative with paints, playdough etc and we also enjoy making toys together. Recently we've painted roads on sheets of card for the little cars, made a play cooker from a big box, and decorated bottles to use as skittles. Maybe they get enough personalising thier toys from these things?
 
#25 ·
We don't care what they do with their toys, short of leaving them on the floor when not in use or throwing anything that isn't a stuffed animal in the house. We don't bang in the house, but other than that bang away.

It can always be washed. If it can't, now it's got more character.
If it's broken then we probably didn't need it anyway.
Books that can be torn aren't allowed to be used unsupervised if the child shows that they can't use them without tearing them.
There are a couple of wooden toys that were made by their great grandfather that we only allow them to play with supervised.

We have explained to them that when playing with other's toys only bang hammers and drums, or they won't be allowed to play. I have a 1yr old and a 2yr old and we've never had a problem when we go to friend's houses.

I could care less if we owned a single store bought toy. The sooner they get broken the sooner I can toss 'em. Kids don't need toys to be happy or smart. Almost all of the ones they have were given to us.
 
#26 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by dawncayden View Post
Ok what about how your dc plays with toys. Specifically if dc takes their doll and throws it down or hits it. Do you let it be because its not a living thing or do you say things like 'oh poor dolly, that will hurt dolly' etc.

I just say, "oh baby is crying. And I pick it up and hug it and then say,"Do you want your Mommy or Daddy" and make their head shake yes, then ds or dd is really wanting to hold their Baby. I don't let them pretend hurt any body. But I'm fine with pretend surgery. I prefer it if they pretend to cut with a crayon, though or a washable marker.
 
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