Sharing your LEGO with your kids

[redryder]

I've only recently started getting into Lego. I don't see myself as a collector, more just a fan. I've bought about 50 sets so far and built 20 of them. The main reason being lack of room in my apartment.

My 5 year old son loves playing with the City and Technic sets, and refuses to let me dismantle them! They are either spread out all over his room, or stored together in a big plastic tub. As a result, I'm sure I've lost plenty of parts and minifigs.

Once I build my Grand Emporium I don't think I'll let him touch it.

[Saint]

Hm... buy your kid his own LEGO sets..

I think that is the answer .. not as crude as it sounds, but I don't share my stuff with anyone ! .

Grtz Saint

[lightningtiger]

Well I let my son play with them....well most (not the Emerald Night though)!

Hopefully everyone remembers who the original target group was eh ? (hint - kid's)

Brick On !

[Gryphon Ink]

My girls play with my Lego all the time. The 9YO is always building furniture for my fantasy factions. I'm sure I've lost a few pieces in the process, but it gives us some good quality time together. The only drawback is she hates it when I dismantle her MOCs, which I kind of have to since we have a really limited stock of pieces at this point. I need to buy her more of her own Lego!

[Michael S]

My girls play with my Lego all the time. The 9YO is always building furniture for my fantasy factions. I'm sure I've lost a few pieces in the process, but it gives us some good quality time together. The only drawback is she hates it when I dismantle her MOCs, which I kind of have to since we have a really limited stock of pieces at this point. I need to buy her more of her own Lego!

Our kids are 8, 4, 3, and -.1

Our entire city (see signature) is built kid-playable! I mean really... why would you want to build the coolest thing ever, then *not* let your kids play w it? They bring it to life... We even have sections of the LEGO table built for everyone so we can all be in the same room and play.

(Yes, I have to rebuild all the time... runway lights get knocked off when you lean on those baseplates, and of course it's hard to keep minifigs on the table in funny poses cuz they get plucked!)

[tedbeard]

Sitting down and rebuilding is an opportunity for connecting with your kids, teaching them how the models go together, reminding yourself how they are put together, getting new ideas for building with the elements in the model and teaching them some responsibility ("if you play with daddy's LEGO you have to put things back together when you are done.")

[Pingles]

My daughter is two and has a giant box filled with Duplo that she has no interest in.

HOWEVER. My Lego? She can't get enough.

For the Lego involved it's a disaster. She just doesn't have the dexterity or patience needed to keep the models in one piece. I am constantly putting things back together.

As others have said it's our play time and I love doing it. I just know ahead of time I am going to be rebuilding.

It did catch me off-guard at first and I posted about her first run-in with my Emerald Night in the Trains forum. That poor train never stood a chance.

I am currently modifying a Fire Brigade for her to play with. It's large, open play areas are perfect for her. I am removing the back walls and angling in teh walls to maximize her access while minimizing chances for disaster. It's a fun challenge.

[alois]

My daughter is three years old and loves to play with my layout of modular houses (mocs and sets). And from time to time I tend to find litle bricks misplaced in the weirdest places,

like a sidewalk tile put on a bench. And the minifigures go all over the place, and get to wear each others wigs and hats. When occasionally I open a house, she plays with it as if it

were a dollhouse. Sometimes I give here a baseplate and some tiles, so she can make colourful sidewalks. She likes to do that very much.

[Solitary Dark]

I'm halfway through building my Spaghetti Western contest entry and my kids (8 and 6) are playing with it regularly. Most of my MOC's have been built to be played with and started as requests from my kids.

[The Real Walkers]

Although she's not mine, my three year old neice is slowly being brought into lego by yours truely. But then again when she came round and saw my Harry Potter castle collection, she said 'that's a lovely castle, but we musn't touch it'

[Fallenangel]

I remember an experience about a year or so ago when I had guests over and their kids came across my LEGO shelf without me knowing. By the time they had left, everything was a mess and minifigures were strewn across the room in every position imaginable (I have somewhat of a concern over the durability of my minifigures, so naturally this appalled me). Whatever MOCs I had built at the time were either in pieces or part of some rainbow warrior they had gotten into building but had never finished. And that is how "Do NOT Touch" found its way onto my display...

Yeah, when you get right to it LEGO is a kids' toy, but what AFOLs do with their LEGO is typically of a higher caliber and possessive of more conscious than what kids do with their LEGO. LEGO is to a good MOCer what oils and paints are to an artist, so it seems like one would prefer that they not be tampered with.

[22kane]

I have a 4 year old autistic daughter and she doesn't play with them properly. She would rather scratch them than build with them. That being the case she doesn't get to touch daddy's Lego's but I have given her several minifigures. When she's a little older things will change and hopefully we can play together.

[freakwave]

Rule #1: Everything in the basement is mine.

Rule #2: Everything in my son's room is his.

Rule #3: Everything what gets into the basement becomes mine.

Basement Rule #1: Do not build with parts from the top drawers (well at least I say so, however sometimes I find those parts in his MOCs )

Basement Rule #2: Do not go behind the (construction) table

Basement Rule #3: Keep your friends to adhere to the all the rules all the time.

This works pretty well most of the times. I am amazed how my 7 y.o. son knows the location of very much of my parts, i.e. bulk slopes and plates for terrain, colors etc. Sometimes I ask him where a part is and he tell me.

He may even play with the train, however if there are friends with him, I try to stay close (at least with an open ear) as it might get out of hand... you know, train derailments, crash and so on...

Solution is to give them some interesting things the can play with even rough like the racers track

[tppytel]

Good question and interesting responses. I have a pair of (almost) 4 year old twins who are fast becoming Lego fanatics. Almost all the Lego in our house gets played with, but we have a definite system that we follow. It's based on three categories:

"Their Legos" - A big tupperware tub of bulk bricks we bought of Craigslist along with a big Lego building table. They can do whatever they want with these, though I encourage them to keep all the minifigs and accessories in a separate tub. If they receive a kiddie set as a present and I don't think it's good enough to bother keeping, it goes into the tub when they get bored of it.

"Our Legos" - We have about 30 sets from various themes that I built for us to play with together. However, only about 3 or 4 of these are built at any one time. These live on the basement table, on the opposite side of the room from the Craigslist Legos. They can play with and modify these sets, though once every week or two I go through and rebuild them to avoid losing too many pieces. We manage not to lose too much, and anything missing just gets added to my Bricklink Wanted Lists. When they get bored of a particular set, I break it down, inventory it, Bricklink again if necessary, and put it away in its box.

Note that it's essential to this scheme that Our Legos do not travel across the room to become Their Legos. The kids are pretty good about this now, but it took some work.

"Daddy's Legos" - This only includes the modular buildings, since they're the only sets I leave on display. This is a somewhat optimistic label, as the buildings are way too cute for the kids to totally stay away from, but they at least don't move the buildings or take the floors apart. But they do love taking the cherries from the Green Grocer's bin and the mail from the Emporium's mailbox. I've given up trying to prevent that and just keep a mint set of extras in a baggie in a hiding place. As long as they don't mess with the buildings, they can play with the cherries.

[fred67]

Son 12, daughter 9... they both can build whatever they want with my pieces, but don't touch my sets. My son has a number of his own, though, and they both collect the collectible minifigures (and I always give them priority over me when I'm trying to complete my set).

I do set up trains at Christmas time (no space for a permanent display), and they can play all they want, including all the other pieces I've got there (a number of bits and pieces from past advent calendars and the bakery and toy shop). They're good about not losing anything, they know it's dad's addiction hobby.

Edited August 23, 2011 by fred67

[Gryphon Ink]

But they do love taking the cherries from the Green Grocer's bin and the mail from the Emporium's mailbox. I've given up trying to prevent that and just keep a mint set of extras in a baggie in a hiding place. As long as they don't mess with the buildings, they can play with the cherries.

I've totally given up on trying to keep my apples and cherries, too. The kids find them way too cute.

[TeufelHund]

My 3 year old loves playing with my Lego (he also has his own).

His favourite is the Death Star - he loves dressing all of the good guys (not just Luke and Han) up as Stormtroopers and rescuing Princess Leia (she also has to dress as a Stormtrooper in order to escape). Often there are no Imperials left to guard the Cell Block as all the available uniforms are being used by rebels! I swear he will be a police officer when he grows up because he loves putting bad guys in priosn cells (he does this with pirates, castle, city etc as well).

We have a simple rule - if it falls on the floor you have to stop playing and pick it up. Also, I do a quick count of all accessories/minifigures etc every few days and if something is missing I ask him where it is and he can usually remember where he left it.

Of course, utlimately there will probably be more wear and tear on my sets than I would prefer but the joy I get from playing with my son is probably worth it.

[dr_spock]

I let my kids play with my MOCs under parental supervision.

[KateB]

My 2 year old daughter is always saying "ding dong Mummy's houses" as 3 of my creator houses are currently on the mantlepiece. My husband has previously held her up so she can move the minifigures around (he tells her to be careful) but I can't bear to watch as she invariably accidentally drops something and the sound of it bouncing off the marble fireplace makes me wince! I will be moving them to our bedroom soon!

I am way too protective of my Lego houses and don't see them as toys (especially when some of them are discontinued so their value is quite high) so have tried to distract her with other things and she seems to have stopped asking to play with them, phew! Though I feel a bit guilty that I won't let her just play with them as she pleases, she is just way too young for them anyway and even when she is older I will try and teach her that she can touch the houses but she needs to be gentle and respectful of them. When she is MUCH older I have promised her that we can build houses together which I am very much looking forward to.

I will happily buy her loads of Lego in the future which she can do whatever she likes with. She's currently using Megablocks so I definitely want to get her some Duplo for Christmas

[Fallenangel]

I will happily buy her loads of Lego in the future which she can do whatever she likes with. She's currently using Megablocks so I definitely want to get her some Duplo for Christmas

I would wean her off the Megabloks; a member of another AFOL forum once found that they caused his hands to bleed badly while he was building with them. And it's not like they're any good anyway.

[KateB]

I would wean her off the Megabloks; a member of another AFOL forum once found that they caused his hands to bleed badly while he was building with them. And it's not like they're any good anyway.

Yes, they are rather naff I agree. Someone else bought them for her, I would have got her the Duplo of course but then I think the minimum age for Duplo is 2 anyway, though I'm not quite sure why

[Zeon]

I am way too protective of my Lego houses and don't see them as toys (especially when some of them are discontinued so their value is quite high) so have tried to distract her with other things and she seems to have stopped asking to play with them, phew! Though I feel a bit guilty that I won't let her just play with them as she pleases, she is just way too young for them anyway and even when she is older I will try and teach her that she can touch the houses but she needs to be gentle and respectful of them. When she is MUCH older I have promised her that we can build houses together which I am very much looking forward to.

I don't think you have to feel guilt at all. My 4 y.o. son has two giant bins of duplo and most of the hero factory robots/monsters (sorry for the sloppy terms), he's quite good with them, inventing his own robots, atlering existing models and building the original ones from instructions. We have a humble amount of sorted pieces that is "ours" and is free to play with. When we are (he is) done, we put all the MOCs, parts, mixed pieces into a big box for me to sort again later. He already knows where to look after what parts (minifig accessories mostly), and it's a gleat pleasure to see how his hand gets more and more agile: 1-2 years ago he was barely able to connect duplo, now he is making cars and houses (a bit awkward ones, but hey, he's 4).

And there is "daddy's lego" of course, a few classic town sets from the 70s 80s in my workroom/office. He is fascinated by them (i think it's mostly because it's mine and not freely accessible). He is allowed to play with them with supervision, but he can't take it out of the room to mix it with "our lego" and he is not allowed to break down the sets. I think it's good to have SOME rules.

[Captain Grog]

Since children will be in my near future I was wondering if any of you let your kids play with your Legos? I certainly want my children to enjoy Legos I'm just not sure how to go about it. Most of my collection is from the late 80s early 90s so they are quite rare and expensive so I'm not sure if I would want them playing with them. What do you or would you guys do?

[K-Nut]

I think this would be better suited in the General Discussion Forum. I'll ask a Mod to move it for you.

I personally believe that you shouldn't. If your kids ask to play with your Lego, get them a new set to preoccupy them with.

[1980-Something-Space-Guy]

It all depends. If you're a die-hard collector that likes to keep the sets in the best conditions possible, then don't. I would wait until they are older to let them enjoy my collection (not even to be played with, since I don't do that).

On the other hand, if you enjoy playing with your collection or don't mind that, I would say go do it. It must be an amazing experience to share your collection with your kids.