My son keeps breaking his toys?

Question

I was okay with it when he broke the matchbox cars to make them "crash" but now the G.I. Joes are missing heads and legs because they got "shot off" and it's a little bit disturbing. Especially when he broke 2 of my niece's Ken dolls, which he is working off the money to pay me back for buying her new ones. I want him to value his toys. I don't have a lot of money to buy him new ones. I know part of it is imagination and pretending, but when the game's over he doesn't have his toy anymore. So how do I stop him from ruining all his toys? He is 6 years old btw.

Answer 1

Try Wooden Toys instead of the tons of cheap plastic junk on the market these days. You will be helping the environment too  ;)

Answer 2

My kids were pretty rough on their toys too.  When they get broken they do not get new ones.  Before long they turned around and had hardly anything left to play with.  Now when they get a new toy for birthday or Christmas or when their papa comes to visit, they take better care of it because they remember what it was like to have an empty toy box.  Try explaining that with privilege comes responsibility.  It is a privilege to have toys - but with having toys comes responsibility.  If he cannot be responsible, he does not get any privileges.

Answer 3

he is old enough now to know that he should take care of his things.  My son is almost 4 now...and if he breaks something...he won't get a new one.  I wouldn't buy him new things until he takes care of the things he already has

Answer 4

One day, when he's not around, take all of his toys (and I mean ALL of them) and put them in a garbage bag or storage bin, and put them in a place where he can't find them.  Take out no more than 5 toys and give them to him to play with.  When he asks what happened to the rest of his toys, explain to him (in your own way) that since he doesn't respect his toys he can no longer play with them.  If he does a good job with the 5 toys that he has, then he might get some of his other ones back.  If he destroys some of his remaining 5 toys, he will soon realize that he doesn't have any more toys to play with.  He may destroy 4 of those 5 toys, but I'm sure that he won't destroy that 5th toy.  

  And that's where he'll get the idea that if he destroys toys then he's going to be out of luck.  

  I hope this works for you.  good luck and let me know how it turned out.