Anyone else have children who break things on a regular basis?

[FabIsGoingToGetFit]

When DS1 was small, and we were only having one child, I would replace anything if it got broken/spoilt though this didn't happen a lot. I certainly don't do it now unless it was something I wanted to have again.

DS2 is just playing with the dolls house and he has brought me the baby's cradle which has a bit broken off it.

I am just so fed up with it.

I am not feeling great today so might be over reacting.

It is normal for some toys to occasionally break in the course of normal play - depending on the cost and quality. Plastic becomes brittle with age and can snap easily.

Do they ever break anything deliberately? Or was it an accident?

The cradle is wood.

I don't know that they break things deliberately all the time but it is just the fact that they don't care when things get spoilt/broken.

They will drop things on the floor and just leave them there. In the car they have books and they will just drop them on the floor and then stand on them when they get out if they don't want to read them. I remove all books from the care every so often.

DS2 has a book that is more sellotape than book but I don't mind that as he loved the book and loooked at it every day when he was smaller but it does annoy me when they draw in books or tear pages.

What upsets me is the fact they just don't care. "We'll get another one." "It doesn't matter."

This is how I deal with it:

expensive toys and expensive books get locked away and only come out when I can supervise, and after play they get put back again. I don't make my children tidy up but I do insist they pick up everything from the floor and put it into the toy box.

Tell them they don't get it replaced if it breaks.

yes, both of mine break things. Ds1 breaks things by accident, by carelessness, by misjudging his own strength, by dismantling something to see what it is, or to make other things - only this morning he broke the leg of a power rangers toy to be able to reach to slide the bolt across my kitchen door, which is locked to keep him from going in and breaking things

ds2 breaks things mid tantrum, but I don't think he ever means to break ythem, he throws them and they break.

neither of mine get things replaced if they break.

It's the old lady thing, I'm afraid. Modern children really DO have too much. They do not appreciate what they have at all.

I used to break my toys, but it certainly wasn't deliberate, and I was always sad that they weren't perfect any more. I was just a clumsy child...

I don't replace things now and they get a lot less. For DS1's birthday he got one thing for £25 and then I felt bad and bought a book as well but to be fair DS1 was really good about it. Didn't really help that his uncle spent £200 but then DS1 doesn't know that.

DD is a careful child and if things get broken or spoilt, I don't give her a hard time as I know it is not intentional or careless.

The DSSs are much less careful - largely as a product of their upbringing - and I don't replace their things much. They can live with them broken.

Tonight they have broken some of DH's train track in the garden..

My DD has never seemed particularly destructive and hasn't broken much of her stuff but my DS is different. I don't know if it is because he is a boy but he is definitely born different to my DD. He is rough with things and doesn't understand without being told that if he is rough with things they are likely to break. He takes things apart as well (which is supposed to be a boy thing) and they don't go back together properly again. He doesn't seem to care that things are broken either and thinks we will just mend it or get a new one (even though we don't replace it). I think they get so much generally that they think it will be replaced, or who cares because they have got so much already anyway. I'm feeling down about him today anyway (posted another thread).