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Teenagers

Parenting teenagers has its ups and downs. Get advice from Mumsnetters here.

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Original poster

Teenage son wound up about his younger brother playing with (and breaking) his old toys. What rules do you suggest?

29 replies

tigermoth · 14/04/2007 12:13

My nearly 13 year old has lots of toys he never plays with - star wars figures, beyblades, that sort of thing, plus xbox games he is now bored with.

My 7 year old son often digs them out and starts playing with them. He is fairly careful but inevitably things break, get lost or saved xbox scores get erased and so on.

Teenage son gets cross and really spiteful towards 7 year old. It is a real ignition point and leads to fights. Teenage son refuses to let 7 year old near his stuff, and IMO can be unreasonable about sharing as said stuff is of zero interest to him. But I cannot deny that it is his stuff and I feel it can be heavy handed of me to insist ds1 shares it.

Ds2 understandaly gets upset that there are these interesting toys lying around gathering dust, toys designed for his age group, not teenagers, yet he is banned from touching them.

I don't know where to draw the boundaries. I really don't want to have to buy duplicates of toys for ds2 when ds1 has a perfectly good example of said toy that is no longer used by him. Too expensive and too much clutter.

I never had this problem as a child as I had no sisters and brothers.

Anyone help with fair ground rules?

OP posts:

Janh · 14/04/2007 12:26

Oh dear, tm - I didn't have this problem because DS1 didn't play with toys past Thomas the Tank and Thunderbirds. (I can't remember what he did do [bad mother])

Could you sit down with both of them and get DS1 to choose some toys to put away and no longer be accessible to DS2, and some which can be passed on to DS2 - would that work? (Of course human nature being what it is, DS2 would probably still want the ones he isn't allowed!)

Not sure what to do about the games - could DS1 just keep a record of his scores somewhere and let the games go?

Not much help - sorry.

Pixiefish · 14/04/2007 12:36

How about a toy cull? Both have to clear out toys they don't play with for the charity shop.

Then save DS1's toys that would be suitable for DS2 and give him some money for them-

2shoes · 14/04/2007 17:45

most likely the wrong thing to say. but if your son is bored with his xbox games he can trade tham in

harpsichordcarrier · 14/04/2007 17:55

hmmm, I would say - he is being unreasonable
if he is not playing with them, and hasn't for a while then I would offer him the choice:

sell what he can (Car boot or whatever)
keep one or two very precious things locked away in his own room
the rest you will chuck away or give to his brother. in return for this he can choose one new toy.

in this house (and when we were growing up) old toys were automatically passed to younger siblings (there were five of us). I think it is a bit of an odd attitude to be so possessive within the family tbh, and I would be pretty clear with him that I didn't like his attitude. if there is something special, something sentimental in particular, then that's one thing, but just hoarding things when someone else could use them - not a great attitude imo.
sorry to be so blunt

2shoes · 14/04/2007 23:24

so if you have been given a toy as a present or brought it your self it doesn't belong to you(not trying to row. but not had to cope with this so curious)

harpsichordcarrier · 14/04/2007 23:25

is that question directed at me 2shoes?

2shoes · 14/04/2007 23:37

sort of
i don't have this problem as dd has sn and is not interested in what ds has.. but would have found it hard to "make" him hand over stuff that belonged to him

Original poster

tigermoth · 14/04/2007 23:38

harpsi and twoshoes, I agree with you both and that is the problem.

Janh precisely - ds2 will tend to want the stuff he isn't allowed.

A general toy cull is an idea, pixiefish, but whenever I ask my sons what toys they no longer want, they get very possessive and sentimental about them all. I have thought of bargaining with ds1 about having extra new stuff or money, as long as he gives some of his old stuff to ds2. Is this the best thing to do? Still undecided. I guess I'd just like to feel ds1 is generous enough to let ds2 play with his old toys, except his very special ones. By virtue of being 5 years older than ds2, ds1 has nataurally accumulated more stuff generally - cricket gear, fishing gear, mobile phone, cd player, etc.

Just this evening, we have had another row about this.

OP posts:

Marina · 14/04/2007 23:47

I think your hunch to say, if you want X, then you have to relinquish something to ds2 first, is a good one TM.
We are unlikely to have the toy handover issue much of the time with my two (although ds is experiencing a sudden surge of passionate love for any soft toy dd takes an interest in ).
But we are saying to ds, who lives in an unsavoury nest of bits of plastic and Dr Who comics, that if he wants X, something else has to go up in the loft, over to dd or out to the charity shop
I sympathise with hoarders though. My parents adopted a scorched earth policy with toys, with anything outgrown even by weeks handed on without consultation. I would have loved my airedale pushalong dog for the dcs but it was sent off round to the neighbours while still warm from dsis' bottom

hunkermunker · 14/04/2007 23:51

I understand being sentimental about toys, but it is unreasonable of him to want to keep everything.

Can you ask him why he doesn't want to give them to his little brother and how he thinks he would feel if he was the youngest?

harpsichordcarrier · 14/04/2007 23:55

yes I suppose I think that toys that are no longer played with are, de facto, to be passed onto younger siblings. current toys are also up to be played with carefully and respectfully, if not in current use.
v specific things - like musical instruments perhaps, or soft toys of Great Import, excepted.
I hadn't really thought about it, but there it is.
dd1 is free to look at and touch any of my things that are not locked away, fwiw, as long as she is careful. everything in this house is communal, I suppose is what I am saying.
I think generosity is a very very important virtue to encourage, and the opposite very important to discourage.
thanks for this thread, it has really clarified things for me. I am not insouciant about this at all

Avalon · 15/04/2007 00:01

I think it's unfair to ds1 to expect him to give up his stuff to ds2 just because he's the wrong age group for it.
Maybe he just wants to keep it. I don't use everything I own, either.

And, are you sure he doesn't play with it? My dd1, nearly the same age, sometimes surprises me by playing with something I thought she'd outgrown.

What will you do with ds2's toys when he's outgrown them? If he's allowed to just keep them it won't be fair, will it?

hunkermunker · 15/04/2007 00:10

I think you're not the oldest, by your posts, Harpsi I don't actually know though. I do know that I am the oldest, so I have a gut feeling which is repellent to me as a parent (that of "gerroff, it's MINE!")

harpsichordcarrier · 15/04/2007 00:13

er, no hunker I am the youngest does it show.
but in fairness, I never remember my sisters being possessive about toys.
clothes, makeup, different story

hunkermunker · 15/04/2007 00:14

Aha! I'd have put money on either youngest or second youngest

Maybe they were good at hiding stuff they didn't want you to have

edam · 15/04/2007 00:19

Somehow I could tell Harpsi was a younger child even before I got to Hunker's post. Am still scarred by what my younger sister did with the toys that I did give up... and occasionally when we are at our mother's house and stumble across something we still catch ourselves arguing about who it belongs too.

Tiger, think part of the problem could be the whole younger son 'digs them out'. Have a conversation with them both about it, sort out what 7yo can have and what teenager really prizes and wants to keep. And the incentive of eldest giving something up in order to get something else sounds a good one.

hunkermunker · 15/04/2007 00:21

Yes, agree with Edam - if your DS2 is having a rummage for things he KNOWS will annoy your DS1 for him to play with (grammar gone to bed, I'll follow shortly ), then I would suggest a sort-out and conversation with DS1 about what's OK to play with, what he wants to keep, what he'd like to try selling at a car boot, etc.

Original poster

tigermoth · 15/04/2007 08:59

Hmm, yes, I think you are right. Before any ground rules are set, a huge toy sort out is urgently needed. Will be tackling the plastic accumulation in the bedroom today.Doing it as fast as possible (so that means I will be extra ruthless) as the weather outdoors is much too nice for housework.

I have lots of empty storage boxes and hope that by categorising and storing what remains, the digging out element will stop and ds1 can really decide what are his special toys and there will be orderly space to put them away. Ah dreams!

I don't expect the fights to stop, but just some abatement would be so very good. I feel that this element of sharing/not sharing may be intrinsic to my sons' relationship - I can see from the posts here that it can continue into adulthood.

OP posts:

FrannyandZooey · 15/04/2007 09:01

I am the youngest too and I TOTALLY agree with HC's completely just and sensible posts

colditz · 15/04/2007 09:04

My younger brother and sister decimated my toy population, and the only thing I managed to rescue was Kallie Prudence, who was my Cabbage Patch Kid, and the only doll I had ever liked. They had big hard heads in those days, they were using her as a club to hit each other.

I now have her dressed in some of ds2's tiny newborn stuff

potoftea · 15/04/2007 09:25

The age gap between your dc tigermoth, is the same as between my older sister and I.

And now in our 40s she still has not forgiven me for taking over her stuff!

Even things like the playpen and highchair which were obviously bought for her first, are things mentioned when she talks of me using her things when we were children!

I think it was just that she had so long to own everything, and was most annoyed when I came along and had rights too.

I do think offering to buy your ds1 toys that he no longer plays with is a good idea.

edam · 15/04/2007 09:58

potoftea, I used to really wind my younger sister up by telling her I'd had mummy and daddy all to myself for three years and she'd always had to share.

harpsichordcarrier · 15/04/2007 18:31

does anyone over the age of ten really care about toys though

Janh · 15/04/2007 18:44

We moved house when I was 14 and my mum chucked out all my old toys and books [bitter]

Marina · 15/04/2007 19:21

My mum did something similar to me Janh. I only have my Sasha and Lego left. One didn't have that many toys in those days, eh, and I can think of three or four I'd have loved to pass on to dd (some glorious OTT Faerie Glen dolly clothes for example)
And I had a nifty Great West Road 30s style huge wooden garage that I think ds would have loved too

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