My 5 year old constantly breaks or destroys new items. What do I do?

Question

My five year old daughter has a bad habit of picking at threads, stickers, etc. She also loses pieces of toys. She constantly ruins of destroys new items I buy her. I know she isn't doing it to be mean, but I need to let her know this isn't acceptable. I've tried to tell her to be more careful and then move on, but it just keeps happening. I don't know what kind of discipline this warrents, but I want to get the point across. Help?

Just had to add...my daughter is now a 13 year old freshman. I am so glad I took sweet_thing_kay04's advice. My beautiful daughter is the most creative, talented young lady I know. To all the new parents out there. Relax and enjoy!

Answer 1

She is only 5 and that is what they do.Lighten up. Kids at that age don't yet understand. When she is in the middle of playing with her toy the last thing on her mind is to be easy with the toy. Remember she is playing with the toy to develope her skills on everyday life.Like house,store,and even doctor. If u get on her to hard then she will only be thinking about mommy getting mad if she breaks it. She's 5 let her play. When something breaks show her how not to have it happen again and let her know that accidents do happen.In time as she gets older then she will learn how to respect her toys. At this age she should be learning to play.Good luck

Answer 2

MMMM>. You may have to closely "inspect" the things she's destroying.. Like clipping hanging threads, removing stickers or just NOT applying them to toys etc... Having her keep her smaller toy pieces in baskets/bins... My children are 1 and 3 yrs. and they know that their toys go in baskets/bins at the end of the night.. .She may just need some different age appropriate toys.. Things she can't "break" if she's too rough. She may need some "guidance" from you in how to be more gentle with her things.. We have a dog and we were able to "teach" her gentle- she'll take food from your hand very,very slowly/gentle... NEVER snatching it or nipping... She's big about 130 lb. rotweiller so teaching a child SHOULD be easier to be gentle... Good luck

Answer 3

Don't keep buying her new ones! If destroying what she's given has no consequences for her, why would she stop? Let her spend a while with only incomplete toys to play with. Have her spend a boring afternoon with you, sorting out the toybox and/or her bedroom to find the missing items.

BUT...be a bit careful that you don't have unrealistic expectations of perfect tidyness and no accidental breakages. She's only five.

Answer 4

Its the age that any kid will do the same. I am 15 now and still I have the collections that I broke when I was between 2 and 6. Cool. My bro is also a destroyer. My mom calls us, destroyer 1 and destroyer 2. LOL. We have a ton of broken toys and others.

Answer 5

i second the dont buy anything new. in fact buy used for thing she really needs and want till she's old enough to appreciate the new stuff. try to be accomadating. make sure there are no loose threads, have specific places for her toys and buy protective gear whenever possible. this is what i do for my almost 4 year old. i buy her used and make sure myself things are in order. for example. she has a nintendo ds i bought used off ebay. i made sure she had a protective case for it and a backpack to carry it in. She makes sure it is always in her bag. i make sure she never forgets the bag. Her toys each have a specific place/mor important container. for example a trunk for all her barbie stuff to get put in. a bookcase for the books, a laundry basket for the dolls, ect. I make sure at the end of the day they are put back there.

Answer 6

Stop buying her new things would be a start.

Explain to her that when she destroys toys, it makes them harder to play with later. And with her breaking or ruining those things, she is going to run out of fun toys to play with.

She will realize that the bad habit needs to stop or she will not get anything new to play with. It might take several months, but you have to stick to your guns about it. NO BUYING NEW TOYS!!

Answer 7

I dont know, I would suggest that perhaps she IS doing it to be mean. or at least venting anger.

I can imagine this is a frustrating thing to deal with and hope that you will stay with your goal of correcting it. I suspect that children that go unattended in this area probably become even angrier or hugely apathetic.

Tough one to answer but to me, it warrants punishment on some level so that it draws her attn to correcting the behavior. (after she has been verbally warned enough so that she understands that it is her choice and a result of her actions that she is being punished)

Answer 8

Look in some child psych books to see what is normal for this age. More to the point, it sounds like is is asking for attention. When she breaks something, she gets your attention and neg. attention is better than no attention. Catch her when she is doing something good, no matter how small and praise her for it or otherwise show your approval in some way. If this doesn't help, you may need professional help.

Answer 9

welcome to my world with a son named Nicholas . every thing i buy this boy in two to three days is broke it started at age 2 and went on until he was 4 i told him i was not buying him anyone toys b/c all he did was break them every time we would go in a store he would want a toy and i told him no b/c he broke them .... he got the idea and stoped breaking them he is now 7 and take good care of his thing . and get this he get mad when his 15 month old sister breaks her toys .. good luck

Answer 10

have you tried good old fashioned disipline ? like spanking or time out . although friends of mine and myself have never had luck with time out . I find spanking is a far more effective tool than time out . I have two sons ages 25 and 23 and I spanked them and they are now successfull . One is a police officer and the other is a paramedic . So I would say I did just fine and I was also a single mom . Old fashioned disipline . good luck .