My friends 4 year old trashed Ds bedroom and broke his expensive birthday toy.

[Cannierelax]

AIBU to want some form of compensation for the broken toy? Perhaps a replacement or even a similair but cheaper toy. My Ds is 5.5 and my friends Dd is 4.5. When i told my friend Ds was really upset she said, well that's what kids do. Em, not my child. Aibu? My friend was there when this happened and gave her Dd a row. She knew that the toy was broken but I said I would get DH to try and mend it. I've just messaged her saying DH Was not able to repair it at this point. At this point she stated that's what children do. I messaged back that it was a birthday gift he was looking forward to for several months. She hasn't messaged back.

some kids build these kits and keep them forever built to play with.
others build them, take them to bits, lose the bits, cry, you hoover the bits up, stand on them, and eventually the whole bloody thing ends up in a bin.

i can see the value of being the first! but if you ds is one of the rare kids who keep their lego sets made up - make sure in furture that you move them out of the way if other kids visit.

i sort of get how you feel - DS had the hogwarts castle and train many years ago. cost a bomb. ended up in bits/lost.

but yabu - you cant really expect other kids to play with lego in the same way as your ds. you ve learnt a lesson here that anything precious is to be put away before other kids come round.

chalk it up to experience.
get the instructions which loads of folk have linked you to.
get the lego bucket and sit with DS finding the bits you need to put it back together.

if all the bits are there it shouldnt be that bad.

good luck and happy building!

I can't WAIT to buy Lego. It's what keeps me strong through night feeds.

Well done OP. Yes YWBU and you've realised with good grace.

Lego is the very devil's own job to get back together if it's been broken into a million bits

And even worse if you stand on it in the dark at 4am whilst seeing to crying baby

One of the best things to do with Lego is get the train set. We used to set up huge towns with the train running through it. And then we'd play 'train crash'. Lego does great train crashes, with the advantage being you then just rebuild it and do it again

Surely if your friend replaced the set it would have to be built again anyway, it being Lego and all...

Well done op.

Brilliant thread. Well done for coming back, OP.

Now enjoy spending the Easter weekend rebuilding your police station!

Wonder how many more people will come on to say "It's Lego? Why don't you just rebuild it?"

y "It's Lego? Why don't you just rebuild it?" :)

Cannierelax - I'm a Lego and playmobil nerd - all instructions are kept seperately, small pieces are kept seperately and completed models are kept locked in a display cabenet. I hide the key when children come to play

My children have loads of other Lego and toys etc to play with, but nothing breakable nor particularly expensive is left out.

As said Lego is definitely rebuild. Ds has the airport and it drives dh nuts when he take it apart and rebuilds it differently - but that's the while point!

If you think he would prefer a make one toy try playmobil.

I remember having basic lego as a child-no kits in my day.

And I had a booklet with ideas of things to make.

On the front were 2 lego people made of the bricks iyswim.

And I'm sure that they were either called the studs or the knobs!!

Anyone??

If my DD did that, I would suggest I came round with a bottle of wine and we rebuilt it together.

Aw well done OP for taking it on the chin and making us smile!

My 6yo DS has the Police Station. It gets built, lasts a week or so before bits start getting knocked off by either him or his little sister and then it gets broken down until the next time we build it. That's how lego works!

Once broken up, bricks are sorted into see through shoe storage boxes by colour or type (wheels, people etc) and instructions are kept in a folder so we know where they are. DH even keeps a running tally of which sets he DS has on brickset.com/

We have a lot of Lego and both DH and DS are massive lego geeks.

Glad to see you have seen the light OP. Yes, it's annoying that the visiting child didn't realise that this set wasn't for breaking but it needs to be rebuilt one way or another and you would have been very U to ask your friend to pay out £70 for a new set when all you really needed are a free set of downloadable instructions!

I think maybe you should text the friend and say you lost the plot over the lego, and that you will get the instructions and rebuild it, otherwise she will always think you are a loon.

I will build it for you again. I would even enjoy separating out all the teeny tiny pieces.

I fricking love lego.

And flat pack furniture.

Bless you OP for conceding defeat in the face of MN wrath. I would be more than happy to dispatch my Lego-mad DCs (and DP) to fix the police station for you over the Easter holidays so I can have some peace and quiet.

DS2 (16) is such a Lego and Playmobil nerd, like DH, that all the kits/ sets are in separate numbered boxes in the garage and in his room he has a folder of instructions which are in numbered poly pockets to match the box!

You have just learnt to put large Lego items out of the way when other kids come round. (I hope.). I expect most of us with sons and Lego have a wardrobe or high shelf where we move such items, and we probably all learnt this the hard way.

Your DS might actually learn something from the lego model if he has to reassemble it. Look at it as a learning experience, he may grow up to be a genius inventor or engineer because of this.

I think the reason I didn't keep the original instructions was because DH and I both thought this wasn't the sort of Lego you break and rebuild. We thought it was a build once only model!

Did you use glue? No.
There you go.

And your DH was never a Lego boy, then?

PS - very amusing thread.

This may have already been suggested, but why don't you give your df the box of lego and instructions and ask her to make it again. She, and her dcs will probably have a fab old time doing it......

You are a good sport, OP. Incidentally Lego was always known as bastard stuff here too.

Especially after the Christmas morning when I was woken at dawn by ds1 actually peeling back my sleeping eyelids while saying (oh the irony!) "Mummy, Mummy, you need to put the Little Lego Man's eyes in now!"