Whose child is the weird one?

[CousinQuandary]

I’m staying with DSis. Her DD(8) has the world’s biggest collection of Playmobil, beautifully laid out all round her room. She does play with it, but it’s always kept very neat.
My DD(5) has pulled the heads off the flowers. She also pulled the leaves off the trees and put them in the Playmobil swimming pool.
DSis thinks this is really strange behaviour - to dismantle things rather than playing with them in the way they were intended.
I think my DD is normal and it’s her DD’s obsessive tidiness that is abnormal. AIBU?

The weird/normal thing is a red herring. You sister mentioned it as a way of subtly saying “stop letting your dd pull apart my child’s toys”

It’s like when people do a tinkly laugh and say “gosh he’s got lots of energy hasn’t he” what they mean is “Christ he’s a pain in the aese I can’t wait for you to take him home”

Read the room op and teach your dd some manners

*Arse

"You sister mentioned it as a way of subtly saying “stop letting your dd pull apart my child’s toys” "

If my child has a special Playmobil setup and a guest about to come round, I tell them to put it away on a shelf. It's not ok to tell a visiting child 'play with the Playmobil but don't move it around'! Just like if you had Lego, there wouldn't be much point playing with it if you couldn't join pieces together and take them apart. Half the problem with this thread is people pronouncing on the situation who have no idea what Playmobil is, or how it's designed to be played with.

Everyone knows what playmobile is and how it’s played with so that’s a stupid thing to say and the child wasn’t moving it around which would be an issue it’s pulling flower heads and trees apart which isn’t the same thing. I’ve put together enough sodding playmobile to know how it work but thanks for the education

Would not be an issue rather

Not everyone knows what Playmobil is or how it's used, clearly - just read the thread! And the nonsense about pulling the flowers apart being somehow destructive.

BOTH moving it around and pulling bits apart would absolutely be an issue if a child had created a beautiful setup!!! Which is why it needs to be kept out of the way of a visiting child. If the OPs DD went into the 8yos room without permission and destroyed her setup, then clearly riot act needs to be read. But if the Playmobil is there to be played with, then it's A-OK for the pieces to be taken apart in the cause of imaginative play.

I do wonder if the sister was subtly asking you to tell your DD not to play with it. If so it was a bit daft of her not to just say outright that it's DD's special toy and she wants it left as it is. Like PP have said both styles of play are totally normal and it's also normal that some toys are out of bounds on a play date. My DS got a huge lego for Christmas that took him a month to construct. He wanted to make it entirely himself so didn't let his cousin even put any of the pieces in in their correct positions. As long as you share most toys it's fine to have some which are just for you.

I’ve been way overly thinking about this.

And I suspect that as it didn’t occur to your sister or niece that anyone would ever play with the playmobil in a non traditional more creative way, then the daughter wasn’t actually told to respect and be careful with the set.

Therefore the five year old played with it in the way she wanted to.

And if it’s nicely set up all over the room there isn’t the option to tidy it away .

All four of you will know for next time

Pulling the leaves and flower heads off - not so much! That not even imagination.

When DD2 (aged 8) does this it's because the Playmobil children have been picking flowers for their teacher. Hers is never neatly arranged though - it's more of a post apocalyptic waste ground than a school when she's not playing with it - but when I queried the adult in a bikini stood on the table in there I got told "she's the teacher"... "but she's not wearing many clothes - does your teacher wear a bikini"... "she's the PE teacher silly"

There's usually logic in those little heads somewhere.

(This is the same kid who, when potty training with nice Paw Patrol knickers as leverage told me it was OK if she weed on Zuma because "he's the water pup")