I have such a great love for Halloween and Christmas, and I express this through buying cool ornaments and trinkits. My current predicament is....how do you tell a two year old not to touch Daddy's toys!? I think he may have already broken my mechanical Frankenstein Surprizingly...I didn't much care. I love him so much and don't have the heart to say no to things like this. I of course have my limits, and my ceramic collectables are off limits. Last year, I chose not to display my treasured Christmas village I've spent years creating...such appeal for a young person's eye and too hard to monitor. My question is, how do you guys deal with this? Just say No? Keep certain things packed? Let your kids play with them? I of course have tons of Halloween and Christmas stuff that he CAN play with....our life size dancing Santa is his favorite!
Posted by ISIS (Member # 1780) on :
Just put them where he can see them and not touch them...and wait until he gets older, and then let him touch them...you are allowed to tell kids that certain things are off limits. I have been watching some people close to me ...who lately have been allowing their children to behave way out of control. I saw a clip the other day for that show WifeSwap and SuperNanny...and the previews...sent chills up me...worse than any Halloween movie out there.
I have all kinds of "toys" too.....
I tried at one time to let kids play with stuff...until a kid broke my real Full Size..Return of the Jedi arcade game. That cost me over $1,000...so after that...I decided..my kid knows how to take care of his stuff..infact whenever he trades any of his games and stuff in at Gamespot...they are so happy to see him coming, because he always takes care of his stuff...and it is never scratched...He has a fit when he rents a game, and brings it home, and it doesn't play...because someone wrecked it-but anyway he could play with stuff when he was young-not at age 2 though-that's too young-but he learned early to take care of things.
So...I think you have to teach your kids at a young age to respect things that don't belong to them, that they can't always have what they want, that they can look but don't touch, and that when they are older and more responsible that they will have things to look forward to.
Posted by Stitch Groover (Member # 2895) on :
I saw a guy on Oprah a while back who was dying of cancer, and travelled the country giving lectures on how to be the best person you could be. One thing he said that rang in my head was that "things are thing".
He told a story of how he took his nephews for a drive one weekend in his new sports car, and while the kids mother was telling them not to make a mess or touch anything in the car, he was standing behind her pouring a can of Coke onto the seats. Later in the trip, one of the kids was sick in the car... he said that it was worth the cost of cleaning the seats so that the poor kid wasn't embarassed about feeling unwell. Spending time having fun and loving your family is a lot more important than "things".
I imagine you'll be teaching your son that he has to keep his toys in his toybox, maybe it's time to do the same thing with yours, as hard as it may be.
That's why I'm glad I don't have any kids!
Posted by EleanorJune (Member # 7024) on :
I actually ran into this problem last year at Christmas. I have so many decorations, my house get's completly transformed. I have some very special peices handed down from me great grandmother. A very delicate nativity scene that I love. Ella always wanted to touch it. I kept it up high where she couldn't reach it and whenever she wanted to look at it, we would take a piece and go sit in the couch together. She liked that it wasn't "off limits" and by my not telling her no, it didn't become a big deal to her. After about a week of taking pieces down, and sitting on the couch, she forgot about it.
This year now that she is over 2 I got her her own little set. If this one breaks, it's no big deal.
Posted by mamamiasweetpeaches (Member # 1715) on :
That last one was good advice. When we were kids we loved playing with our moms nativity set. It was very old and expensive and someone in the family (not me) had broken the donkey's leg or something and now it was totally taboo to touch the thing! If my mother was feeling REALLY KIND she let us play with it when we were a little older. She still has it!..so maybe her not letting us play with it payed off!
When I grew up and got a house I had a nativity set and my little one was dying to get her hands on it! Granted, it wasnt an expensive one...but a part of you dies when you see one of the lamb's is missing a foot! I put that one away and bought one where the pieces DONT COME OUT and used that for awhile. Then when my daughter got older my mother found some old junky nativity sets at garage sales and would buy them and give them to my daughter so she had her own set (She loved it. Used to carry the people and animals around in a little bag and play with them like they were Polly Pockets!)Then I could put out my "good one", passed my pieces-glued-in-place one on to a friend who had just got his own place, and my daughter had her OWN "Jesus People" to play with
Otherwise--- two is too young to expect them to keep their hands off. You might wanna pack the stuff away or keep it high up for the next 5 years.
Posted by ISIS (Member # 1780) on :
I agree about the "things are just things"...to a certain point...my friend owns a Christmas Gift Shop, and she says all the time that parents come in with their kids, and they say "don't touch anything"....and she says...if the parents can touch stuff, then why can't the kids, and it's just stuff, and stuff can be replaced. It depends on what the stuff is though.
Because I couldn't replace my arcade game...it was vintage...and my own kid barely got to play with it...plus who can afford to do that all the time, so kids do need to learn if they do touch stuff that they know how to take care of it.
I have a policy of no kids under age 12 here at my B & B....but I have made exceptions when I know the kids are good. But, I have had people say they want to bring babies here and put them in the bed with them...and I have spent too much money on mattresses to allow a kid to pee the bed. And, I have alot of things in my home that belonged to my Grandma, and they are irreplaceable, so some things you have to put limits on. I agree about supervising them with something...then that takes the "mystic" away from it.
Posted by kevdugp73 (Member # 5978) on :
Great feedback guys. We certainly reinforce a "NO" at our house...."NO" means "NO". I've seen so many senarios where parents will say "NO"...the kids keep doing what they're not suppossed to be doing...the parents say "NO"...again...and again. So, we definitly have things off limits at our house, but we also have to be reasonable....it's not fair, in my opinion, to set something out that is shiny, glitters, lights up, and makes music, etc...then tell a two year old not to touch it. I too have really nice Christmas ornaments handed down from my Grandparents.....if i can't display them out of reach....they'll have to wait a few years before coming out. Again...the balance is having all sorts of fun stuff that they "CAN" play with. I have such great memories of playing with my parents' nativity set and other Christmas decorations....thankfully I salvaged most of it. I feel guilty each year that my Mom will give me another ornament that was around when I was a kid. I half heartedly say..."No Mom...that's OK...I say it with sad eyes...and she usually insists...I mean...she can come to my house and look at them any time she wants!
![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
Surprizingly...I didn't much care. I love him so much and don't have the heart to say no to things like this. I of course have my limits, and my ceramic collectables are off limits. Last year, I chose not to display my treasured Christmas village I've spent years creating...such appeal for a young person's eye and too hard to monitor. My question is, how do you guys deal with this? Just say No? Keep certain things packed? Let your kids play with them? I of course have tons of Halloween and Christmas stuff that he CAN play with....our life size dancing Santa is his favorite!