Sharing your LEGO with your kids

[tppytel]

I have a pair of 4 year old twins who are well on their way to being Legophiles. We have a pretty workable system. First off, Legos only get played with in the basement, which is relatively large, uncarpeted, and free of all the day-to-day clutter of the rest of the house - so any pieces that end up on the floor tend to get found in short order. Second, we have a strict division between the place to play with sets (the table on one side of the basement) and the place to build stuff freely (the floor on the other side). On the table, we keep 3-4 sets of varying sizes at any given time, plus a small box of miscellaneous minifig parts and accessories. Every couple months, I pick out sets that aren't getting much love, inventory them, replace parts via Bricklink if necessary, pack them back away, and build something else. On the floor on the other side of the room we have one of those Lego play tables plus a huge Tupperware bin of bulk Legos we bought off of Craigslist for $100. The only rule we have is that Lego guys from the table *never* visit Lego guys on the floor. That's a rule that even 3 year olds can understand, and we've not had a problem with it. I replace the odd item from the sets every now and then, mostly little accessories like swords, coins, flowers, and goblets that I've already ordered extras for from Bricklink. But basically, all of our sets are still together and ready to come back out another day. The Medieval Market Village in particular has never been broken down, has entertained my daughter several times a week for almost a year now, and is still complete.

Overall, I think it's a pretty reasonable plan and we've had good results with it.

[Hrw-Amen]

Unfortunately I my wife and I don't have any children of our own. But I do like to play with my LEGO. If I had children though I think I would be OK with them playing with the bricks and parts that are not made up into stuff. I do have some MOCs and otheer models that I want to keep intact and as they are, so would not be so keen to let them play with them as I want them in good condition. But, I would buy them there own stuff, (And have just been doing so for my niece and nephew.) and it is fun to join in with them and watch/teach them to build. I always enjoyed playing with LEGO myself with my father as a child, it is a really good learning tool for counting and basic engineering.

[gifinim]

Like a lot of other people, I've shared some of my old collection with my 5 year olds. They're not really old enough for the Technic stuff yet but most everything else is fair game.

I've got a display shelf with a firm "if it's on there it's not to play with" rule, which so far they've been very good about. Sometimes they'll make something with their Lego as ask me to put it on the display shelf as well, as they don't want it breaking down straight away.

The best thing to stop them going after your Lego is to get them some of their own!

[splatman]

Finding a bad-behaving doctor in jail or a mechanic sleeping over in a friend's cottage always makes me smile :)

Doc in jail? Sounds like there's been some major malpractice going on! Maybe the mechanic is working with his friend toward starting a holistic clinic. :)

[wackyfm]

I love to see my 4 years old daughter play with my lego. We usually invent wonderful stories and we like to include small train layouts when we play together. He favorite stuff, is when I let her play with may modular buildings, but it's kind or rare. She also love swooshing some a-wing or x-wing around. She is very careful, and she understand that lego are important to me. I fail to remember all the other stuff she loves about lego, but it certainly includes:

- looking at sets in store shelves, and dreaming to buy the biggest ones.

- feeling the bags of collectible minifigures to try to find which one

- building minifigures

- lightsabers duel with Darth Vader and Luke minifigs

- play cop & thief with my police station

There is even some sets that she help me build ;-)

Cheers

Wakwak

[legomonk]

I have two kids 6 and 9 and I do let them play with my collection. My daughter who is 9 has shown real skill in building sets by following instructions and being focused on the task. My son has had trouble focusing in school and on set projects and has had a rougher time with them. Lego time is a big part of my family and my girlfriend has even gotten into collecting with a big interest in harry potter range. Every Sunday we build a new set as a family normally just a small one but it fosters that family time in a shared interest. When it comes to rules consistency and continuity is key. I set clear boundaries with the Legos and reinforce them with punishment of not being able to play with them when the boundaries are broken. Some boundaries I suggest are limiting minifigs and their utensils (i.e. weapons, tools, saddles). I let them play with 4 minifigs and one utensil each. Also built large sets are to not be taken apart and when they do break they need to tell me. All Legos must be picked up after use or if they are moving onto a different task. Limit where they play in their rooms unsupervised will result in lost pieces and/or broken sets. These are just some basic rules that make it easy to enforce and comply. I love Legos and my kids and love to share my hobby and passion with them. As result of their interest in playing with Legos I can buy more of them with out hearing about it from my girlfriend and family buy more of them for us to build. Its like I get to buy Legos for them and I end up with more. SCORE!!!

[Pingles]

Yes and No.

We bought my 3-year old daughter a bunch of Duplo a few years ago that she has no interest in whatsoever.

However, she goes nuts for "Daddy's Lego" and can't get enough.

As a result a bunch of my collection is on my Office floor where we both play with it. There are a multitude of "Oh no!"s when she plays as she destroys model after model with rough play. It's gotten much better but they're just not designed for her age so it's inevitable.

I have a bunch of sets kept out of reach and others I take out just when I can supervise strictly.

Others (like the Fire Station) I have radically modified for her play, which works great. I have hinges on the roofs of many vehicles so she can send everyone for a tour on the bus or a ride in a boat.

I love it.

[splatman]

We bought my 3-year old daughter a bunch of Duplo a few years ago that she has no interest in whatsoever.

Look on the bright side: You have something that can be used for internal supports inside mountains or tunnels.

Or something for young relatives to play with when they visit.

[Lothos]

Back when I was a member of the metal legion on Moc pages, I had a pretty big moc/diorama base built for the Arizona regulators. I put it in the spare bed room to make sure that it wouldn't be messed with or broken or whatever.I was planning on photographing it. So I could set the scene up and all that jazz.

My nephew from California came to visit. He played with it, I was a-ok with it. Nephew is 9. Wife's friends kid came by. 5 minutes and the base was destroyed.

Rules should be in place so that this doesn't happen. I was mad for a couple days don't get me wrong, but I explained that he can't mess with stuff that's not in the office. Guidelines, and all that are important. A moc I spent a few weeks of building on was gone in minutes. Thank god for cigarrettes and patience.

[Lego Lassie]

I never thought my Lego buying would progress past the first set when I bought Jabba's Sail Barge. It was a lot of money and after I built it I thought "Now what?" My children were 6 and 8 and it seemed natural to let them play with it for what did a grownup need with a toy?

Fast forward a number of years and thousands of dollars later and my stance has now changed. I discovered a joy for Lego that I never knew I could have and have become an avid collector. My children no longer are allowed to play with my Lego but now have their own as well. My daughter has become quite a Lego nut herself while my son wouldn't bother to play with my sets even if the opportunity arose. He has his own which rarely ever gets played with and now he wants to sell them.

I do feel guilty for keeping these toys to myself even if my daughter has a lot of her own. Bricklink is not an option for me, no Lego store anywhere vaguely close, and I don't have much money for many luxuries like this. I am very careful with my sets to not lose any pieces and after seeing how she treats hers I am glad we have our own

I believe it has actually worked out for the best though. My daughter used to burn through her allowance on useless nothings and now with the incentive of buying her own sets she has become very careful with her money and understands budgeting. She is also learning to take better care of hers through my example so all in all I like it better this way.

[Dazmundo]

I have a daughter who is almost 2, she has stacks of Duplo which she likes building with.

This week I have set up the Winter Village Toy Shop under the tree with The Emerald Night running round it and I have no problem with her crawling under the tree to play with it. It amused me the other day when she climbed up the stairs took my hand and said down, lead me back down the stairs and to our tree to shown me that she had crashed the train and broken up some of the track and she wanted me to fix it.

I have a shed full of 80's sets and she will be allowed to play with those if she wants to, I played with them all through my childhood so I can't imagine she will do any more damage than I did.

D

[lorax]

I have a daughter who is almost 2, she has stacks of Duplo which she likes building with.

This week I have set up the Winter Village Toy Shop under the tree with The Emerald Night running round it and I have no problem with her crawling under the tree to play with it. It amused me the other day when she climbed up the stairs took my hand and said down, lead me back down the stairs and to our tree to shown me that she had crashed the train and broken up some of the track and she wanted me to fix it.

We have a Lego Christmas layout under our tree also which we have also had to 'fix' on numerous occasions thanks to our enthusiastic 2 1/2 year old and a number of train crashes.

[NiceMarmot]

I wouldn't say I'm a collector at all, and I have no mint sets at all. I bought LEGO initially for the kids, and that brought me out of my dark ages, so while I love building MOCs (by myself and with them), the LEGO are primarily there for them. Or at least that's what I tell my wife. I never really understood the folks that have a ton of sets built sitting around collecting dust; but I realize that there are different personalities and interests, and that's OK.

We have an almost 5 year old boy, and a 12 yro girl. She plays with LEGO rarely, mostly if everyone else is also. I think that's because we didn't buy LEGO for her early on, and only had a few sets until recently. Only in the last year have we really started to accumulate sets and bricks. We set up some rules for LEGO, and they seem to work fairly well. The rules in our house are:

• the LEGO belongs to everyone - there's no my LEGO vs your LEGO (except for very selected minifigures)
  
• don't destroy or take apart anything someone else has built, except
  
• two weeks after someone else's creation is built, you can take it apart (but try to ask first)
  
• no LEGO outside, in the car, or in the bathrooms
  
• put the LEGO bricks back into the correct bins once you're done
  

My son has a bit of a hard time with the two week rule (especially since he's not exactly sure how long a week is...), but in general he's pretty good, especially if I'm still actively building something. The most he'll probably do is 'augment' it with some wacky minifigs. I'd say a week after I finish building something, he considers it fair game for serious 'redesign'. It's actually kind of neat, because he's way more experimental with pieces than I am, probably because he doesn't know what the 'right' way to use a piece is, and sometimes he really comes up with some cool stuff. That said, we've had an AT-ST MOC sitting around for more than six months; he plays with it but hasn't destroyed it. I guess he thinks it's so great he doesn't want to mess with it. He's not so good at the 'putting back' rule either, although getting better. It's not like we have a ton of bins, so it's not too hard to sort. He and I are starting to build more stuff together, and he's able to follow simple LEGO directions, with some help.

[Kryne]

I let my daughter play with my lego, even the modulars, she loves them and will play with 1 set for upto an hour without any noise from her at all, yes sometimes she breaks lil parts off, but its lego it can all be fixed. She has her own lego bricks but gets upset that she dosnt have whats needed to build a pet shop like mine. She also loves trains, so she is in for a treat, have 3 passenger train sets, 2 yellow cargo sets, 2 maersk train sets, and a red cargo set for her to play with now. As i said above if it breaks its easy to fix.

[Hopey]

Hiya.

I've just recently emerged from the "Dark Ages" as it's apparently called, and I think I've become an AFOL.

This has largely been prompted by the fact that my sons (6 and 5) have been getting into lego somewhat over the last year or so, and now have a moderately sized collection of various sets (ciry/police, star wars, etc). Helping them out with these piqued my interest, which along with a realisation that I now have a disposable income piqued my interest to the point that I got a unimog for my birthday, got some job lots of technic from ebay, discovered bricklink, and am now pretty much hooked.

Rather than the "one big bucket" method of storing it that I'd used as a young fella, I've invested in some compartmentalised boxes and am keeping my own collection sorted, and having seen the benefits of this, I'm already kicking myself for not doing something similar when I was little.

It's worked so well that I've invested in some similar boxes for the kids lego and started teaching them how to sort it. Helped by labels with pictures which I printed out, this has gone surprisingly well. I was expecting them to stop and ask me "Where does this go" for every other piece, but they've both picked it up rather well.

Anyway, on to my question, for those of you with kids: How do you manage your kids lego and your own lego?

Do you keep them completely separate? Or mostly separate, with occasional borrowing? Or do you keep it all together, sorted appropriately, with some kind of ground rules laid down?

The fact that mine is all Technic and theirs is all System, there's not actually a huge amount of overlap, but there is some, and they'll have their own Technic one day, I assume.

How do kids generally deal with the fact that their Dad has better toys than they do?

Cheers.

[TheLegoDr]

So far, my daughters are in a little bucket and mine are in random boxes by color. She ends up wanting to play with mine most of the time (probably because I have more pieces), but I do my best to keep them separate. I'm sure some borrowing has been done, but I'm not too concerned most of the time.

As her collection grows, I will continue to keep it separate, but will probably sort it more thoroughly to help keep them separate.

[Eilif]

My son is only 16 months, so he's got his on Primo, which will shortly become his own duplo. When he's old enough to treat the collection with some manner of respect (not throwing,etc...) I'm going to make the collection completely open to him.

There will of course be some limits. I don't plan on having him disassemble things that I'm building or have built, and some steps will have to be taken to keep the LEGO somewhat organized. That said, I see little point in having all this LEGO if my kid(s) can't also enjoy it.

For the record, I'm not a set collector, so that makes the decision easier for me.

[Dfenz]

I keep my parts and sets separate from the kids (7 and 12). They have their own stash of (unsorted) LEGO parts in various buckets. They dip into my parts from time to time and many of my sets, e.g. Star Wars vehicles and minifigures are borrowed from me. I know they swap/borrow/buy/sell parts between themselves from time to time and occasionally I've had to go searching for parts in their storage boxes.

The main reasons for keeping the parts separate are:

- safe storage and monitoring of whereabouts of more valuable sets and parts and more delicate stuff

- sorted parts v everything in one box approach - latter doesn't exactly help MOC building

- requirement to keep some (e.g. Star Wars) sets together

- ability to give LEGO presents to kids - not much point if everything all ends up in one family LEGO haul anyway.

The problem with 100% sharing LEGO would be that not everything would go back into its proper storage area and I'd find it impossible to build any MOCs under those conditions - I'd end up buying pieces we already had.

For Brickset purposes I don't bother to separate out the sets as they get registered once I've acquired them in the shops no matter which one of us they are destined for.

As a final precaution I've told the kids that the sets they have been given are actually provided on a 999 year lease basis with a condition that should they ever (or rather when they) leave home their sets stay at Dfenz LEGO HQ unless otherwise given permission to leave - no AWOLs just AFOLs!!

[Rick]

Anyway, on to my question, for those of you with kids: How do you manage your kids lego and your own lego?

Merged with this very similar thread from last year.