Ripping up books

[Debbiethemum]

My 3 yr old ds has just started this, he loves books has a bookcase in his room and will "read" to himself as well as us reading to him. But he has just ripped out a page from one of his favourite books. I have told him off (he is now having a wobbly because he has been told off) is removing all of his books for a couple of days a bit harsh as that is what I am tempted to do. Last time I threw the torn books in the bin watched by him and said why I was doing this (torn beyond repair anyway).

If a page got ripped accidently then I wouldn't be cross, it is the deliberate distruction that annoys me.

We had this when ds1 was around 2/2.5 years old (I think the stress due to moving house last year). It was extremely painful to do (especially when a couple were favourites of mine) but we:

a) banned him taking books to bed with him until he could demonstrate he could look after them.
b) any ripped book immediately got chucked in the bin, no discussion.
c) no trips to the library until he could look after his own books.

We lost about 4 or 5 books, but he pretty quickly cottoned on to the fact that we weren't going to budge and we haven't seen a deliberately ripped book since... touch wood!