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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU or is LEGO just a crap toy now

142 replies

RockyAddict · 29/08/2011 11:02

I have spent the morning playing with my six year old DS2 and his Lego. But my God, it's infuriating. He has collected lots of 'kits' which my DH puts together for him, but once they are broken apart and the pieces put into the 'Lego tub' that's it. You can never put them back together again. We keep the instructions but I have just spent half an hour looking for a few of the same bits to no avail. I was a real Lego kid in the 70's and I loved it, but now the bits are so small and the kits so complicated that I lose the will to create anything.
And don't get me started on the cost! £10 for a tiny Star Wars space ship and a couple of Storm Troopers.
AIBU?

I thank you for reading my rant!

OP posts:
hotandsticky · 29/08/2011 18:54

My DN's love love Lego. And the kits. (Mostly Star Wars)
They play for hours.
I had Lego as a kid and I still think its brilliant, except for the fact that there is always a small bit that I inevitably stand on when I'm not wearing shoes.
OW!

A1980 · 29/08/2011 18:58

I never got the kits when I was little. You get to the end and have the fisnihsed product and then what? It just sits there unless you pull it apart and make it again.

The blocks are cool though. The packs that just have hundreds of blocks in them and you make waht you like over and over.

camdancer · 29/08/2011 19:15

We love Lego. Most of it comes from ebay so is an ok price. We get the stuff without boxes or instructions then download them from the internet. DS (4) spends hours building ships, some with instructions but most from his imagination. DD (2) has also started playing with it. Sadly she loves the pink stuff but also likes Cars2 stuff.

My DH built a massive box for it with lots of compartments. It is my favourite thing to sort it all out. Once it is sorted it is easy to build things again.

ZZZenAgain · 29/08/2011 19:22

I love lego. I think it is by far the best toy I bought. I am not bothered with the kits, it is a pile of differnent pieces and they are always being put together to make new things. It is fantastic. Dd is doing a course with lego robots and programming them with some lego software (haven't understood any of it myself). She thinks it is fantastic, she's going on for 11 now but she still uses her lego pieces all the time.

ZZZenAgain · 29/08/2011 19:23

when I say I am not bothered with the kits, I mean they are fine, but when they break, the pieces are just fair game for new creations, don't try and keep them separate or anything like that.

nannynick · 29/08/2011 19:42

YABU Lego has always had quite small pieces, at least it did in the late 70's early 80's... though back then I suppose the range of pieces was more limited. These days there does seem to be a lot more different pieces, so many more ways of categorising them when it comes to putting them in storage boxes.

Kits are fine to make up, play with for a bit and then take apart. Once they are apart, they get put with all the other Lego... that then makes it hard to find the rights bits again - but that's the fun of it, the next time you build it you build it slightly differently. It is annoying when you can't find a particular piece for a set though... Lego Spares service can be good at getting a replacement piece, as can non-Lego-run sites like www.spareblocks.com/

maypole1 · 29/08/2011 21:03

Well my dd has been getting Lego since he was six now 11 and its still his fav toy he spends hours making elaborate things and now he's older he uses motors and all sorts made some thing to chase the cat the other day lol

Dd up loads his creation on to the Lego site and gets the rated next year we shall try Lego technic

Go lego

maypole1 · 29/08/2011 21:05

And to be honest I thought I was a childs toy but dd showed me on the Lego site just how serious people take Lego one man built some Lego chair I was really good.

Its also inspired dd to want to become a engineer when he's older

Hulababy · 29/08/2011 21:07

I always think the kits kind of take away the whole point of Lego. It's supposed to be a use you imagination and get making type of toy in my mind. A kit with step by step instructions takes all that away - not imagination required. Far better to have a box of bits and get designing themselves.

Mind you, I say this as someone who has a DD who has Lego but has never really been into it at all, kit or otherwise.

cantspel · 29/08/2011 21:08

My oldest lad is 15 and there will still be lego on his list of christmas wants.

The only difference between now and 10 yeara ago is the sets are toocomplicated for me to do and cost around £150 each.

ballstoit · 29/08/2011 21:11

Would recommend ebay for Lego, Knex etc...just bought 4 large boxes of knex for £25...DC and DNephews have been kept entertained for days this holidays with it...well worth it.

Bonsoir · 29/08/2011 21:11

My DD (6.9) loves Lego, both the mixed boxes which you can create according to your imagination and the fab 3-in-1 Lego Creator houses, which teach children how to use Lego IMO and are amazing.

There are no issues in our house about dismantling kits and putting the pieces back in a single box to be reused...

sinat54 · 29/08/2011 21:16

Oh crap....just threw away a tatty old instruction booklet....running upstairs now to retrieve from the last days of holiday sort out bags....thankfully it's in the recycle one.....I'm sure it'll be the favorite model instructions!!!

Bonsoir · 29/08/2011 21:17

you can get instructions on line if you have lost them

ChristinedePizan · 29/08/2011 21:20

I had lego kits when I was a kid and I'm 46. My sister and I used to save up our pocket money for them. But we broke them apart and made different things which is what my DS does now. Once the thing has broken, we never bother to remake it. It only seems to be (male) visitors who are keen to rebuild the original thing for some reason.

QueeferSutherland · 29/08/2011 21:25

I LOVE Lego!

My DD has a few of the kits but she only wants to make what they are iyswim. Her brother played with her Lego Land Rover and bashed it up a bit, and she wanted a new one rather than find all the bits.Confused

If you think my DC are playing with my old 30 year old Lego & Duplo, I think it's a damn fine toy, although the price makes me Shock sometimes. When I think it will probably last three generations though, you can't deny it's good value.

Chipsycheese · 29/08/2011 21:30

When you stand on lego it really hurts. So YANBU.

MarshaBrady · 29/08/2011 21:33

Lego is still great.

Ds can follow instructions well now and some stuff stays built (the most expensive) and many others eventually get broken down to build his own models.

Clary · 29/08/2011 21:39

YABU I am afraid.

And in fact pretty much a blasphemer in this house. Lego is great. Star Wars is ver expensive, but Lego City is not so dear.

I do think you are aiming high-ish with a 6yo tho. Youngest any of mine seriously played with it was 6-7-8yo. DS2 is 8.5 and has only got into it in the last year I would say. The boxes under-age it IMO. DS1 is a BIIIIIIIG fan and he is 12.

Just encourage him to make different things with it - my kids come up with all sorts of wierd and wonderful stuff, Yoda flying a spaceship, a knight in Spongebob's cafe etc

Loving the idea of Lego sweets! Don't tell DS1 tho .

joric · 29/08/2011 21:44

I hate Lego and did as a child - my brother loved it as does my mum who has bought DD the lego hospital - kept safely at her house thank goodness all the BITS... I have not got the patience. I'm the same with jigsaws. :(

joric · 29/08/2011 21:49

BTW I would say 9/10 years before they can put decent kits together themselves ... The bigger kits 10/11 plus. Even older.
I'm that age x4 and still can't do it though :(

Original poster
RockyAddict · 29/08/2011 21:50

Wow, what a response. I loved Lego, like it used to be, blocks and building houses and castle type stuff with the little plastic windows and the shutters, oh man I loved the shutters, they really finished off your house...

But it's the kits that get sold now that do my head in. I'm all for putting them back into the correct box and packing them away 'until next time' (I used to love putting all the pieces away in a segmented box according to colour and size) but it's not MY toy nowadays. My DS doesn't like to tidy them away neatly and he's not at all bothered about what he makes or doesn't make with the bits left over. Indiana Jones quite often flies about in a space ship type vehicle with a stormtrooper helmet on his head in our house.

It's not my kids that are unhappy, it's me. I shall be searching online for boxes of bricks, as suggested. They may well appear on my Christmas list....

OP posts:
Jellykat · 29/08/2011 21:53

We are Lego lovers in this house.
DS1 - when he comes home for visits (now 22) - still sits there on the floor with his old school mates, bottles of Lager and baccy at their side, music on, Lego tipped in a huge pile.. and they're off.. catching up and building for hours..

I do agree that you need a fair bit of the basic bits for the optimum experience, some of ours date back well before DS1 was even a twinkle, and when i suggested we sell it to create a bit of space (a harsh decision brought on by a brief declutter phase), both DSs went ape.. Guess it'll be in the family for many many years to come. Smile

TheFogsGettingThicker · 29/08/2011 22:02

The makers of Lego nearly went under, simply because it's so durable, everyone kept it and passed it down.

The kits have saved them. (So my DH says.)

Not fussed on them myself, I do prefer the making-your-own-creations concept but if it keeps them going -

maighdlin · 30/08/2011 00:16

i have the problem with lego and many other toys in that there really isn't much creativity involved in them, you get a box that will make one thing and one thing only. as a child i would have spent hours happily making loads of things out of my big lego box but now lego seems to be make this and only this. i had a vague recollection of a bigger "baby" lego and went to toys r us to get some for DD and looked at the lego section and it was all these kits, couldn't even find a box of "normal" lego never mind the stuff i had imagined. maybe its just me but things for children now seem to be more "follow instructions" than go mad and see what the hell you can come up with. My mum went to a toy shop to buy a set to teach DNeice how to knit as she became obsessed watching my mum knit (DNeice on DH's side but both families get on well) the only things my mum could find where kits that you could make one thing out of. it had just enough wool to make the thing on the front. so my mum bought the kit to get the needles (ones that a five yo could use hence the need to go to a toy shop) and some normal wool from the knitting shop. she was saying that when i was younger (and this only 20 years ago) she bought a learn to knit set for me that was basically 4 balls of different coloured wool and needles and it meant i could knit whatever i wanted to.

long post but stuff like this has annoyed me for a while.