mistreating toys?

[mushpea]

3 of the 5 schoolies i have are being far to rough and disrespectful of toys , things are being broken and when i tell them they need to be more careful and look after the toys they dont seem to care, they treat toys this way at home so its not an issue to them,, I have stopped relplacing broken toys and have told them this and even though now they have only one bugy to play with and they fight over it still dosent sink in,, I am now begining to think that the 3 days I have them after school I wont bring in any toys other than puzzles, train set, cars , potato head andpopoids that are in all the time as i am sick of them mistreting the other stuff i bring in,,, I have happy street twith no doors on houses, a drawing etcha sketch thing that dosen clean its screen automaticly any more,, broken puschairs,, tents with holes in and the list goes on,,, would i be wrong to stop brining in extra toys on these days and then when i dont have them bring other toys in for the other 2 (who are here all week) on the other 2 days? I would explain why they have nothing to play with and when i see them start to treat toys properly then bring more stuff in.

[jellytot]

I think keeping toys away from them is the way to go. just give them couple puzzles, paper, colours. Explain why also. Have you spoken to the parents? how old are they?

[Penny1959]

I think you need to work out why these children are breaking your toys.
Are the toys stage of development appropriate? (sounds like they should be but I don't know the children).
Is the mum not bothered about your broken toys or the ones at home?
Do the children just get new things at home when they break something?
Is it through rough play orvery deliberate damage?

I would be tempted to only put out a choice of two activities - one a craft / drawing activity and the other something they can do together such as the popoids or the trainset.

I would also make the point when you get back from school of 'helping' them to get the things out of the box to check for damage before play starts and then to support them putting the things away so you can comment there and then on any damage that has occurred during that play session - and to explain to parent that collects them in front of the children what has been damaged (or of course to comment on no damage). Maybe if you have a digital camera the children could take pictures of the toys before play and another after play so if any damage - it will be very visable and they would be able to see how many toys / pieces of sets they were breaking.

I think that once you start closely mionitoring the situation and start making them accountable for their actions they will start to be more careful. So maybe you could have a star chart sort of thing whereby when a whole week has gone by without any damage they will be allowed to choose a third activity for each evening for the following week.

My ideas may not work with your mindees - but hopefully others willhave different suggestions that might work.

Penny

[mushpea]

The children are 7rys,4yrs and 5yrs all girls plus there is also a 3yrs,7yrs and 2yrs who ususaly play nicle but because the others are playing rough then they will
they dont delibriatly break things but dont seem to take care when playing and are just to rough in general,, at home the parent dosent mind this and i do tell mum when things get broken and she does tell them its naughty but thats as far as it goes although i do say to parents they are told of here for things they do so its not always fair to get a double telling off from parents aswell.
I just dont want the other 7yrold to feel put out by not having the other toys in but then again he likes to play the wii and is here all week so when they go home on a wedensday (they go home at 4pm wednesdays) we could go down to the shed and he could pick out what he would like in as a sort of treat for being good I guess.

[Goatgirl]

Hi ,
If it was me I'd sit them all down and go over your rules (if you have them) and how I expect them to behave, all couched in positive language. I'd be giving rewards for calm play - stickers generally work, but I don't know your mindees or what makes them tick..

I'd be reminding them constantly of the fact that they are my toys, not theirs, so whatever the rules are at home does not make any difference to how they are expected to behave at my house.

If they are not sharing or not treating the toys appropriately I will put those particular toys aside and explain that they are mine, I am very kind to let them all share my toys but we do treat each other kindly and take care of each other. I would be careful with their things, so when I think they can be kind and caring with my things I can give them another chance.

I'd give lots of enthusiastic praise for appropriate behaviour: once the rough ones see the calm ones getitng all this attention they'll want some, so it'll start to have an effect even if the behaviour isn't as quick to change.

I would remove the toy if only the offending party (ies) were playing with it, or get them to help me put it away if it is being mistreated, saying things like "oh dear, i've asked you not to play with x like that and you haven't listened, so now we'll have to put it away and you'll not be able to play with it any more. What a shame: you like that one" All in quite a jolly ' this is the way it is going to be' voice". Every time. For as long as it takes, so that they know I mean business.

I wouldn't remove the toy from children playing with it appropriately; In that case I would 'remove' the offending children:

I'd have strategies for when the children get too boisterous (calm - down activities: reading? Drawing? a short dvd? Sit down quietly with me and play cards or a board game? easy craft activities they can be trusted to do alone?) - just something they like to do on their own usually so its not regarded as a punishment, but time to themselves, so they can see and feel the difference in their behaviour and think about it) and time out (or thinking time) for anyone still not calming down after I've offered alternative activities.

Hope this is helpful, but if not no problem at all; everyones different. Feel free to ignore

hope it works out soon,
best wishes,
Wendy

[mushpea]

thanks wendy,, alot of what you have said makes sense and i will certianily try out your tactics,,, I am fumining tonight,, when everyone went home I got out all the board games which they can get to and all the puzzles which they also can get too and half the peices of the games are missing and out of numerous puzzles I have 4 left that are whole,,, so all the board games are going on a shelf and they will have to ask for them and I will tell the child who asks for the game that they are responsible for putting it away again, they now only have the 4 puzzles in a that are whole and I have put all of the extra toys i bring in each week away and I will bring them out when I see they are being better with the ususal stuff.
it just annoys me cause i go out of my way to buy stuff for them to play with and the just wreck it,, neither of my children play with the toys as they have out grown them so its all for the mindees,,,, oh well,, maybe i will just have a major toy clear out and they will just have to put up with whatever is left!

[ChocolateChip]

Hope the new strategies work, some good ideas have been posted.
If you have the time maybe write a list of all the toys/ games you had, and cross off the broken or incomplete ones, it may just shock the older ones as to how much they used to have to play with. You don't need to comment, just leave it up somewhere in sight and let them draw their own conclusions!

[mushpea]

Hope the new strategies work, some good ideas have been posted.
If you have the time maybe write a list of all the toys/ games you had, and cross off the broken or incomplete ones, it may just shock the older ones as to how much they used to have to play with. You don't need to comment, just leave it up somewhere in sight and let them draw their own conclusions!

thats a good idea,, i did photo all the toys once and put them on sheets of paper so they could see what we had and choose what they want but one of the 3yrolds decided it would be fun to screw it up!!