My five year old son is like a bull in a China shop and destroys most of his toys. We've tried to fix this behavior to no avail.
I am looking to buy him a remote control monster truck that is very strong and hard to damage. Any recommendations?
Also any other toys that are recommended?
Thanks.
How's that relevant?!
/s
well… for reference a nokia 3310/3315 at this age would be a pricy possession and indestructible and with 2g networks being non existent, can be considered a toy.
electronics are not tough, remotes are weak
I think you're looking for something that can be pushed, like a tonka truck
Tonka Toys - Unbreakable
If you can find anyone giving them away.
Not sure if you can buy them new any more
Have seen the tonka truck at aldi special buys
Lego
5 year old might take to eating them.
A 5 year old? Damn I hope not.
Chief, is your kid Ralph Wiggum?
laughs I'm in danger!
Just buy him a ball……..
Medicine ball, won't get punctured…..
.
Traxxas Slash. Parts are readily available for when he does break it and they're pretty easy to work on. Don't bother cheaping out, you'll end up regretting it.
We've tried to fix this behavior to no avail.
Try no toys then. Just kidding. what have you tried?
I am looking to buy him a remote control monster truck that is very strong and hard to damage. Any recommendations?
Anything remote will break, get him a metal tonka truck, those ones from the 80s had been bomb proof!
Where can you buy these?
Facebook Marketplace
Hot wheels rhinomite has been thrown/driven off and down the stairs more times than I care to count… still ok.
The ikea cabinet and tiles though… not so ok.
Chuck the boy some boxing gloves.
Tonka Toys are tough
A bicycle. Them he can burn some of that energy off.
We've tried to fix this behavior to no avail.
Maybe stop buying toys would fix this behaviour…
What will he do then?
Children dont needs toys. If you feel obliged, buy 1 solid one.
They need high levels of play and social interaction underpinned by learning, guidance and reinforcement of social expectations.
In fact, too many toys creates all sorts of issues. Plenty of research on it. Even spills into spaces (theres a whole thing on sparse classrooms to increase learning but I digress).
Tldr - less is best.
They need high levels of play and social interaction underpinned by learning, guidance and reinforcement of social expectations.
Any suggestions?
@BluebirdV: People have to play with their kids. Or look for playgroups.
Play is things like, helping to cook and counting the spoonfuls or the numbers on the side. It's going shopping and learning about why something is a better buy than something else (and not getting a toy or lolly, get a free piece of fruit).
Or it could be playing in a sandpit or outside with sticks, inside building a pillow fort etc.
The learning doesnt have to be planned or deliberate. It's just teaching them how to live, getting them involved and being hands on. Play isn't playing - it's about driving imagination and critical thinking skills. The fact that sometimes we do that with toys is a convenience.
Social expectations stuff is like today, parents had kids at an auction house (why?) But hey, they were 'look with your eyes, not with your hands', 'this isnt yours so be respectful' etc. Kids get a fun outing looking at weird crp and a social lesson.
@BluebirdV: Peeps telling you how to parent are meaning well, but are coming from a place where their kids have been more malleable. No doubt their advice won't work and you already know that because you know your kid. Don't let the unintended judgement get to you down, parenting each kid has their own varying degrees of challenges,some parents just have it a lot harder than others, which is lost on lots of people.
Peeps telling you how to parent are meaning well, but are coming from a place where their kids have been more malleable. No doubt their advice won't work and you already know that because you know your kid.
Yeah, it's definitely not because he's a lazy parent who is trying to solve the lack of attention they pay to their kid by using gadgets.
@Charmoffensive: Huh, what an odd thing to say. They're clearly going out of their way to try to cater for their kid as best they can. Keep your unjust negative judgements to yourself.
@JakeyJooJoo: There's nothing unjust about it. Read his replies.
He says he keeps buying toys and his kid breaks them intentionally. When asked if he ever does supervised play, it's crickets. He suggested it could be because his kid watches a lot of unsupervised YouTube on a tablet.
It's pretty clear he's using toys to substitute actual supervision.
Stretch Armstrong
Just declared your age.
Not in this case. I saw someone trying to sell a "vintage" one on Marketplace and looked it up!
Pet rock.
RIP windows?
Any toy built before the year 2000. All my toys from the 90s are still going strong. Anything after that will last about 5 mins before something falls of and break rendering the toy useless
We've tried to fix this behavior to no avail.
Does he try and play with the toy and just breaks them because he’s uncoordinated or does he actively just break toys as that’s fun for him? Hard to suggest without knowing how they break.
He does it for fun and wants it fixed after. He's had constant reinforcement that this behavior is wrong but we can't seem to change his behavior. Maybe he watched too many YouTube videos of things breaking.
No toy is ever going to be good enough. He's going to keep breaking them and he just needs to understand it's not acceptable
"My five year old son"
"Maybe he watched too many YouTube videos of things breaking."
FFS
.
WILL IT BLEND?!
If he wants to do breaking and is happy to try to fix things himself with your help, then maybe actual tools and supervised play would be better?
Yeah, sounds like a plan. He likes to fix things.
@BluebirdV: Cool. Hve had success with kids and bits of wood, screws, nails, drawijg across the wood and getting them to finish screwing or nailing something in.
Then threading string around the nails is a way to continue the play. Obviously if theres other kids around the hammer play can be a bit lethal so yeah supervised…
The stanley junior set comes with hammer, screwdrivers x2 and safety goggles.
If he wants to bash stuff, i dont know if the melissa & doug pound a peg is too young for him, thats another good outlet too - op shops usually have them for cheap, or Ikea have a cheap version.
Tell him to earn whatever money is required to buy his own toys, then he's free to break them…
There are not many jobs for 5y old…
He can do stuff around the house e.g. clean up his room for $0.10/hour. That will teach him the value of money and the toys he breaks.
There are not many jobs for 5y old…
Someones gotta clean the chimney 🤷🏽♂️
Santa, is that you?
Buy cheap toys at the $2 shop then it doesn't matter if he breaks them.
Need to think old school. Classic lego, Tonka, Schleich, wooden toys (search Steiner or Waldorf), Thomas Tank Engine wooden sets.
Also, stop replacing them. Talk about ownership, cost, maintenance and consequences for destruction. In other words, he breaks it, he bought it. Limit new purchases past this point to birthdays and/or Xmas.
those loud annoying clickers
buy a bag full
Tap dance shoes.
Our four year old is the same. He just breaks everything - it’s not that he’s necessarily rough with it, he just tries to pull everything apart!
The things that have lasted
- duplo train set. It’s indestructible, we now have two different ones.
- magnatiles get a good work out
- we were given a ride on/remote control minicar, its big enough for him to ride around in but also be used as a remote control car. We had a monster jam remote control car and he took the wheels off it and I can’t find them all now!
- sandpit and sandpit toys - toys usually cheap and easily replaced. Battery operated vacuum is required though because the sandpit will slowly be brought into your house, but he’ll play in there for a good hour.
- a pile of rocks and planks and a couple of tonka trucks. Load up the trucks, move the rocks. Drive them on the planks. Unload them, start again.
- scooters/bikes/pedal cars
- tubs of dinosaurs/animals etc
- Tupperware shape-o has also lasted since infancy but might be too old for that now!
- hot wheels/matchbox cars
As frustrating as it is, I don’t think the destructiveness is a trait they have intentionally. Your kid might need to be doing more “heavy work” tasks and kept moving. My kid isn’t into reading, or writing. He won’t draw anything if you put him in front of a piece of paper. School is going to be interesting 😬.
Couldn't agree more with all of this.
Trampoline is another one. Duplo + Trampoline have had the lowest $/hr - they just get used and abused constantly but are up for the fight!!
And echo the Sandpit - ours is currently pretty tired because all the sand's in our bloody hallway.
My 5 year old loves to pull apart and know how everything works - so I do lots of CAD and 3d printing contraptions with him and he gets to put it all together.
Oh, and the occasional Amazon cardboard box in the backyard and a baseball bat seems to manage some of the destructive "exploration" they have.
Dont buy him a rc
Buying more toys ain’t going fix his behaviour, sounds like discipline is in order. Keep buying toys is just rewarding his behaviour and will never learn. It’s not fking rocket science.
easier said than done :)
Isn’t the alternative far worse?
The earlier you deal with it the easier it is. We have a 4yo & 6 yo. Anytime we let things slide it comes back to bite you 2x. Learnt the hard way plenty of times. Painful, but far easier to deal with issues upfront, before they get out of control.
If OP can’t control a 5y old’s behaviour, imagine what it’s going to be like when they’re 15.
control
That’s a word which means different things to different people including kids and parents. Figuring out what that control is for your kid is the hard part.
@kaleidoscope: This is where therapists come in and make things better for $$$. So best thing for OP to do is to spend the monies on therapy for the kid so the kid can learn to play with therapists for the rest of its life.
Just give him some wooden toys, most are very robust! Train, car, type of toy! We make them in our woodwork club and give them away to local children’s charities every Xmas.
Get him a Nokia 3310
From my experience, tougher and more expensive toys won't solve the problem. It's just they're packed full of energy and toys become the victims… Instead think of alternative strategies to teach and practice taking bit more responsibility and taking care of the toys in a meaningful way.
For instance, my son recently got a rc car for his birthday, he used to run through 4AA batteries two times a day with it (🙏 eneloops) and when the batteries go flat, he'd just do other things with it >.< … Few days later I told him I'd only change the batteries every third day and as soon as the batteries go flat he has to return it to me to charge instead of doing all sort of other things with. Now he just plays with it for 10-15 mins , brings it back to me all by himself.
You will need to work on his behaviour because kindergarten teachers won’t be happy if he destroys their toys. Maybe you can find him a sport or activity that can give him a lot of running around and some discipline in the activity. Near us they have little league soccer that has very young kids. They just run a few drills and kick the ball around. Maybe get him some outdoor play equipment. We bought a little tykes golf kit for a friend’s kid, when he was about your kids age. Their son is now mid twenties and they’ve just found the set in the garden. It has been out in the weather for 15 years. It was still in pretty good shape.
I play RC cars with my 5 y/o son (mini-z's, cr18p evos for indoors and some 1/10 lipo powered stuff for the park), but i wouldn't recommend it unless you enjoy them yourself i.e fixing them / keeping on top of charging/maintaining batteries…kids run em hard but I do remind him if he enjoys them he better look after it cuz I'm not buying him another etc.
Some other stuff my son plays with aside from the usual monster jam/hot wheels.. a mini indoor basketball hoop hanging on a door, brio pinball game, nerf guns pretty low powered for shooting at little targets (nerf jr on amazon), some bow and arrow target set arrows have those suction cups on the ends (amazon), some marble drop magnet set thing, magic sand/slime playdough, ofc his bike and a trampoline out the backyard…
Destructive behavior isn't on though I nip that in the bud…some toys he's allowed to play rough, crashing hot wheels cars together, smashing lego/duplo buildings whatever and (with constant intervention) he's eventually developed a sense of what toys are for rough play and what's not.
But honestly most of all other than playing with any of his toys alone, he'd rather have me interacting/playing with him.
Our 4 years old Border Collie does the same. We are also looking for indestructible toys.
Kong for aggressive chewers from Amazon
Kmart pet section but only get the ropes
Chuck it Ultra balls to teach fetch
Kong which used to be made in USA were good but not the china made one.. quality has gone down significantly.
You may regret looking for stronger toys! Either the toy is the weak link or the wall/deck/roof/window is the weak link. Ensure your house is stronger than the toys :).
Have you tried a scratching post?
I am looking to buy him a remote control monster truck that is very strong and hard to damage. Any recommendations?
He might break something else with the truck instead…
Can't break sand, dirt, grass.
May eat it though?
.
How about exchange the kid?
Don’t find solution for a problem. Fix the problem.
Sun Tzu
My cousin used to do this lol… He would come over and start wrecking everything. maybe sturdy action figures? star wars is on sale for $7 for the 30cm ones…. https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/859885 Eventually he got into video games, then Scouts and climbs mountains etc now.
Basketball shoes and a team to join.
Jenga, dominoes, shapes basket where you fit the pieces into their correct holes.
I do have to say though, you break it - no play. Time to explore the back yard or park.
Take your child to California and transition him to a girl. The wokies will applaud you and call you stunning and brave and then you can setup a youtube channel of your child unboxing toys. No need for thank yous.
Oh dear, my poor son.
whats your budget?