Your kids and YOUR Lego

[Haldiron]

But if you do let him in there, then it still becomes a toy and not fully an investment. He'd basically still need his own LEGO to "play" with in the end.

I do agree there are certainly some collectibles in there. I don't let my daughter play with some of my higher priced figures, but she can basically do whatever with the rest. She breaks a lot, but then I just put it back together. If there is something I really don't want her touching, it sits high on a shelf in another room that she doesn't go into (like you).

But not everyone is a collector/investor. I buy for fun to build, I don't care about appreciation in value or anything like that and I'm not trying to resell later.

Well, i did say "may". It really just depends on his maturity level. Right now, he's not doing much building. He just destroys things. He does like playing with mini-figs, but just isn't very good at the building part. He enjoys tearing it all down more then anything else. So, when I say protect my investment, I really just mean, I want to keep them all together and prefer not to have 5 year old, grimy fingers all over them. Hopefully, one day he will grow up a little. I would like to at least show them to him one day. For right now, he does have his own Lego toys.

[dr_spock]

My kids got me into Lego. I made my MOCs kid play-survivable. Now my kids are bigger and in their Dark Ages. They unloaded all their Lego on me.

Looking back I'd probably should have bought them stuff I would like. Maybe something to consider when shopping for your kids.

[Meyerj]

I buy separate Lego for my daughter, and occasionally let her play with some mini-figs. I keep my sets out of reach from her.

I was at this point but gave up and just bought more seperators and mixed it at, lego is just lego...

[ISDAvenger]

I've got two boys 12 and 10. The oldest is a gamer and has no interest at all in Lego. My youngest is outdoors type, but does build frequently and helps me build sets that I buy. He buys sets as well, but rarely asks for Lego for his birthday, or Christmas. I have a large collection of Star Wars Lego sets on display in my bonus room, in addition to spare parts for MOCs. Both boys know that my collection and parts are off limits and they do not bother it. Their friends are quite impressed with my display, but word had gotten out and I feel most of my adult neighbors think I'm a huge geek lol.

[naf]

I've been contemplating this question quite a bit lately. I've been in my dark ages since the early to mid 90's, and haven't really given Lego much thought until recently. I got married last year and now have a couple of stepkids, and a new son on the way. I purchased a few smaller sets for the kids, and my stepson seems to be pretty interested in building. This caused me to start going through my old Lego collection at my parents, and in doing so I learned that a lot of my sets are pretty valuable. I'm just going to keep them at my parents for the time being, and keep sorting them out into sets to see what's actually there in total. I know all the parts are there, I was pretty anal about not losing anything, even though the parts are mixed together in several large rubbermade bins. I'm sure there will be a bunch of leftover brick, so I'll probably donate those to the kids and display my prized pieces somewhere out of reach.

[Stinky]

I have two kids (6 and 4) and two kinds of Lego. My Lego: old, yellowed, Pat.Pend. pre-1975 Lego. And there's their new shiny Lego.

They have to stay away from my Lego. What they do with their new Lego, break it, set it on fire, swallow it: I could not care less. :)

[Xeen-ia]

I have two kids (6 and 4) and two kinds of Lego. My Lego: old, yellowed, Pat.Pend. pre-1975 Lego. And there's their new shiny Lego.

They have to stay away from my Lego. What they do with their new Lego, break it, set it on fire, swallow it: I could not care less. :)

It's pretty much the same here.

My newly bought legos is not to be touched by my 5y old, but apart from some very few bricks that i'm attached to from my old sets, he's got it all to play with as he wishes. But it's hands off moms lego...he can look and touch the modulars on display under supervision.

That has led to the obvious conclusion for a boy that age...i'm not allowed to touch his legos either, other than when helping him assemble old or new sets.

[naf]

I should add that I'm completely fine playing with my Legos with the kids, but only when I'm around supervising. I definitely want to share my Black Seas Barracuda and Monorail transport system with the little ones, but these sets are in mint condition and I'd prefer to not lose parts, or have anything chewed on.

I think it's a generational thing. I'm in my 30's and it seems that a lot of people my age kept a lot of their important toys, or are collecting toys from their childhood that they've lost or always wanted but can buy for themselves now. So our kids will have to compete with us :) We're the "never gonna grow up" generation!

[SheepEater]

Personally I'd get a kick of seeing little kids play with Fabuland Legos especially, which were created 3 decades before them

A few years ago my nephew had fun helping me build my classic space mobile rocket launcher, but that's pretty much it for me ( I have no kids of my own).

[naf]

I always thought I'd just give my old Lego to my kids. But when I finally dug them out, I realized that even as an adult I still love playing with my old sets and that I don't want to see them chewed up/destroyed/lost/etc. I think I'm going to compromise by giving my kids new Lego sets to call their own, and they can play with dad's Lego under supervision.

Edited April 23, 2013 by naf

[1974]

Sure. I'm done buying new LEGO sets and my son luves all the old castle/city/space/technic stuff .. unfortunally, he's finding out just what Bricklink is all about, haha

[Stinky]

Much depends on what age the kids are and how destructive. Remember: ye olde Pat-Pend bricks have

become very breakable over the years due to 'plastic-corrosion'. Play on!

[Dazmundo]

I hadn't thought about getting my old Fabuland figures out, my 3 yr old would love them! Currently on her play ledge is #6380 - Emergency Treatment Center (1987) which she really likes playing with but I think she would love Fabuland!

D

[Kivi]

I have some city vehicles from late 80s assembled and my elder son (almost 4) likes playing with them. One good thing about them is that the bricks stick together very well, having taken up quite some dust in 25 years and never been cleaned, so incidental destruction is not a problem.

[sarah-k]

I've been thinking about this a lot as I've been really getting into Legos again. I have several creator houses that I build with my 4-year-old daughter. We've been building together since she was about 2.5. She was never big on putting things in her mouth and has a extreme respect for "Mommy's Legos". She can now do lots of the building by herself. I fetch pieces, and she puts them on with my help as necessary. It's not as much fun for me and it's very time-consuming, but I know it's great for her fine motor skills. Once we finish building, she plays with the mini figs in the house for days. She builds little accessories and furniture in her playing, and then eventually after several days, I put the set away. Then a few days/weeks later we get out a different one. Repeat ad nauseum. She has her own Legos too (both duplo and regular), and we play with those lots too.

I'd like to get a modular building, but I'm not sure how that will be for playing. I don't want to have a set for display purposes only. My main purpose for having the Legos is to have something that we can play with together that interests me as well as her.

I also have a baby, and I know as gets older the rules will not be as liberal for him. I don't think he will be as gentle with them as my daughter is. We'll see though!

[prozac]

I have a 3year old and he has a few of his own sets but of course he likes daddys big sets lol! I let him play with them some but only when im around.

[LegoDad]

My 6 year old is allowed to play with anything except the modulars. He isn't destructive and is very good with stuff, so I'm not too worried about stuff getting beat up. My 3 year old daughter on the other hand, is very destructive and I always have to watch her if the boys are building, because she loves to take stuff apart.

[Kristel]

I'd like to get a modular building, but I'm not sure how that will be for playing. I don't want to have a set for display purposes only. My main purpose for having the Legos is to have something that we can play with together that interests me as well as her.

Welcome to Eurobricks. I think your story echoes that of quite a few AFOLs, including myself.

I have a 6 y.o. daughter and one of her favourites buildings is the Apple Tree House. She likes to pretend the attic space is the bedroom for the lawnmower. She is allowed to play with the modular buildings. She did drop one once (3000+ pieces!), which was a shame, but no damage to her or the bricks, so all's good. Her favourites so far have been the Pet Shop, Town Hall and Palace Cinema. The latter was a big hit because all the minifigs could go watch a movie together! I dismantled that one last week and I found most of the Star Wars crew in there. Usually whatever modular I have on the go (whether its an official model or an MOC) becomes home for her favourite minifigs for a while.

[sarah-k]

Welcome to Eurobricks. I think your story echoes that of quite a few AFOLs, including myself.

I have a 6 y.o. daughter and one of her favourites buildings is the Apple Tree House. She likes to pretend the attic space is the bedroom for the lawnmower. She is allowed to play with the modular buildings. She did drop one once (3000+ pieces!), which was a shame, but no damage to her or the bricks, so all's good. Her favourites so far have been the Pet Shop, Town Hall and Palace Cinema. The latter was a big hit because all the minifigs could go watch a movie together! I dismantled that one last week and I found most of the Star Wars crew in there. Usually whatever modular I have on the go (whether its an official model or an MOC) becomes home for her favourite minifigs for a while.

I think I might get the Pet Shop. I know my daughter would love that one. Speaking of dropping one - we built Seaside house the other day, and somehow or another, it dropped right off the end of the dining room table. But, fortunately, it's Lego and was easily rebuilt. No damage :) In fact, it's one of the main reasons I love Lego - they are so sturdy!!

[robuko]

We have a new rule. I spent my bonus this year on SDCC and NYCC minifigures and they are not for playing. But that's for me as well as him. I am not too bothered about the sets, most pieces can be bricklinked if they get trashed or vanish.

When I am MOCing for Guilds of Historica, it's kind of no-touch (my builds are generally not solid and deadlines are tight IRL) until it's time for doing photo studio. Then my son can take photos with me and everything is his castle after that to play whatever he wants - usually it becomes a garage for Lightning McQueen. I just landed a Constitution train for my birthday. "No Daddy, it's mine". He just turned 3.

[Hrw-Amen]

Well I do not have children unfortunately (I'd really of liked one.) and as such usually it is not a problem. My best mate has two sons though and one is really into trains. I have been on to him to get him a LEGO train for a while now and so the other day they came around to have a go on mine. We set it all up before he arrived and I was really pleased with the layout we had so speedily constructed for him. However when he arrived all the little chap seemed to want to do was push the train around the track, never mind the IR controller that we showed him several times how to use. He just dropped it ran over to the train and pushed it! Now that I would find really annoying if he were my child, so I would have to insist no touching. I did begrudgingly invite him around to play again but I may have to make a specific push along train for him until he grows into be able to appreciate running them remotely.

[Sharkyla]

Planning a family now, not sure how i'll go with sharing my Lego. I still find bits with teeth marks for when I was a kid.

[MikroMan]

I don't have any children yet, but I have younger siblings at my house every so often. I keep some of my prized sets out of reach or at least away from any reaching hands (UCS Millennium Flacon, T1 Volkswagen Van, Mindstorms...). My collection of smaller sets is sorted and stored in toolboxes. I keep an extra box of LEGO discolored pieces, knock offs and such for them to play with.

[TheLegoDr]

That's probably a good idea. Just have random bricks they can play with that you don't have any use for. I should dig some of mine out for that. I bought one of those 1600 piece sets for Black Friday a few years ago. I have hardly opened it, so I'm glad I gave one away to another customer there since they looked distraught for not finding one. I didn't need two and it is even more obvious now.

As far as my daughter, she is getting a lot better about breaking sets. But she has one of her newer friends who is not used to LEGO come over more now. She doesn't have the same dexterity as my daughter, but she also doesn't understand not to touch certain sets. Time will help this of course.

One thing I don't understand is people finding teeth marks. I realize young people put things in their mouth, but I guess I never had the desire/curiosity to bite one of my LEGO bricks. And so far I haven't seen my daughter do it, so that's good. She's only 3, so..

[Gryphon Ink]

One thing I don't understand is people finding teeth marks. I realize young people put things in their mouth, but I guess I never had the desire/curiosity to bite one of my LEGO bricks. And so far I haven't seen my daughter do it, so that's good. She's only 3, so..

They do it when they can't get the pieces apart. Not all kids do it. My eldest daughter has always been super careful with our Lego, gently working on everything. But when I'm building with my youngest, I have to make sure there is a brick separator right at hand, because if she can't get something apart by tugging she WILL use her teeth. She is also not nearly as gentle with the bricks as my eldest.

We set it all up before he arrived and I was really pleased with the layout we had so speedily constructed for him. However when he arrived all the little chap seemed to want to do was push the train around the track, never mind the IR controller that we showed him several times how to use. He just dropped it ran over to the train and pushed it!

There's something about pushing the trains that just speaks to a child. My youngest is fascinated with the Constitution we just built. She loves to run it around the tracks and makes up whole stories about the Lone Ranger characters riding the train. Until I actually bought the set, I wondered why TLG made such a nice steamer without any regard for motorizing it. But after seeing my little troll playing with it, I know. Motorizing it would totally kill the magic.