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Kid-proofing your collection


Jawjaw

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We have all heard at least one horror story of a child destroying a prized toy. The last being Monkey N - see story here. It appears that many of us have very young kids or will have kids soon, like myself. Thus, I and other future dads are looking for ideas to keep the youngins from thrashing our expensive collection. Post your experiences and ideas.

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For my little girl I am going to have to put doors on my bookcase or by a new glass case with doors. It doesn't help that my fiancée can't wait for the day that I come home and my Little Jada is dragging one of my favorite figures across the floor. <_<

But for my 1/48's and Masterpiece Prime I keep them high enough that no one can get to them. ;)

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For now, I planning on not letting the child into the room with my collection unless they are supervised. If that doesn't fly with the wife, I'll probably block off the side of the room with my stuff using baby gates.

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We're not planning for kids for another couple of years, but I've been thinking about this already. My collection is in an IKEA case with glass doors (see link in my sig). My plan is to mount a couple of those brass hinge & loop lock things (like on a treasure chest) at the top of the case. The hinge will connect to the inside of the doors at the top edge. The loop will be mounted on the top of the case. That way, the lock is 7' off the ground and the whole assembly mostly hidden.

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Just an idea: bribery/distraction. Give the kid his/her own Valk, or actively encourage interest in something else, like Dragonball, and get them toys for that.

Idea 2: Send your collection to me for safekeeping. (I know someone would offer that suggestion eventually, might as well be me.)

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Just an idea: bribery/distraction. Give the kid his/her own Valk, or actively encourage interest in something else, like Dragonball, and get them toys for that.

That won't work, kids have little to none attention spans. As soon as they realise there's more somewhere else, they're out to go get them.

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A variety of options...

First off start training your kids early not to mess with your stuff... Pavlov trained dogs to drool when a bell was rung... Just hit the kid with an electric cattle prod everytime you see them looking at your toys.

ELectric fence?

"fido zap"? The collar you put on your kid and everytime they cross the invisible line to enter your cave they get shocked.

motion sensing sirens in your cave

trained attack dogs/cats/birds/reptiles/etc in your cave.

stories of the boogey man that lives in your "cave"

make them watch "childs play" and say that your toys will "not be as friendly"

Smack your child with a bandai everytime they mis-behave. This will not only keep them from misbehaving as it hurts, but will also make them adverse to touching anything even similar in shape/design.

I like the idea of emotional trauma myself... Put the toy that has either been broken or dis-assemble a cheaper one and put it in the most accessable area of your cave, knowing that as soon as it is merely touched it will collapse in a heap of pieces. Gather the pieces in front of the child while sobbing quietly and then give the pieces to them as a birthday/x-mas gift.

sell the kid on the black market and buy more toys.

Distractions work for relatives/guests kids such as explosives, sharp pointies, chemicals, drugs, etc. They can't mess with your stuff while they are in the ER. Heck... with the right drugs they will play with shadows in the corner for days an be entertained... I know I did :rolleyes:

qualudes???

Keep something cooler than expensive toys handy to keep them occupied. My coworkers kids always ignore the cool toys just so they can swing swords around outside ;) . Video games are also a good distraction.

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Just an idea: bribery/distraction. Give the kid his/her own Valk, or actively encourage interest in something else, like Dragonball, and get them toys for that.

That plan worked great for my oldest.

I sacrificed a blue bootleg vf-19 to her, and man is it in pieces now. But she never goes near my case, and it is open front.

The youngest on the other hand is still being indoctrinated. Most of the time she's pretty good, but the other day, my wife came down to find her slinging my MG NT-1 Alex around.

For her, I just put the ones I dont really care about down low, that way, if she gets one, it's not a major one.

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i perfer a more governmental method. deny all exsistance of macross toys and keep a secret room to place them in that only you can access.

I don't know many people who have a room that they could use for that, and kids have a bad habit of being able to find anything, it's only a matter of time.

My friend has this problem since there's always a lot of little kids at his place, and the Der Fueher approach seems to work well, they can reach his stuff but they're scared to death about what he'd do if the actualy messed with them.

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Just an idea: bribery/distraction. Give the kid his/her own Valk, or actively encourage interest in something else, like Dragonball, and get them toys for that.

That won't work, kids have little to none attention spans. As soon as they realise there's more somewhere else, they're out to go get them.

A little misdirection/reverse psychology, then: put a collection of Playboy mags somewhere else, and VERY POINTEDLY forbid the kid to ever touch it.

Also, force the kid to endure a one-hour lecture on Macross and Macross paraphernalia every Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.

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My little girl is about 14 months. Generally, I just keep her out of the room with my toys. Cutting her off at the source tends to be the best strategy. I have a few IKEA BILLY bookcases in my "study." I don't have the glass doors on them yet (they were out of stock when I bought the cases) but hopefully I'll be getting those next month. I also tend to keep the more expensive stuff on the higher shelves.

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My son did not not pay much attention to any of the toys I have until the Optimus MPC arrived.OH MAN!! All of a sudden he has realized all of the potential toys to play with. For the most part I have all of them at least 5 feet off of the ground so he can't reach them.Temporary solution, I know.

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Shouldn't the inverse of this also apply??? I've got a solution

Want to have kids at the price of having your prized Valks damaged... here's a thought... sell them Rascals on the blackmarket! And I'm not talking about the Valks :D A healthy child on the blackmarket could fetch $50,000+ Imagine all the Valks and customs you could buy with that!?! :salivate: No?

hmmm...

Here is a thought, for you people who have yet to have kids.... Kids cost nothing to make... They cost you money once they are made and proceed to get more and more expensive. A lot of the time they become more and more worthless (kind of like a cheap import car, i.e. Yugo).

Valks can cost a bit to get... have little or NO upkeep cost... and they become more and more valuable (they also don't steal cars, do drugs, murder you in your sleep).

a $.15 condom vs an infinatly expensive child destroying your $xxxx.xx colection of Valks :)

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No kids? C'mon where's the fun in that? Spreading your seed is fun and you get little people to boss around.

I like the idea of giving the kids some other interest. I have some Gundam stuff that I am not too interested in anymore so I will let them play with that. They can also have all my crappy Toynami stuff.

I don't like the idea of the man cave. I think that will just make the contents of the room more desirable - like the forbidden fruit. All it would take is one day that you forget to look the door.

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take control of the basement & build your toy lair in it then simply lock it. that's what i plan to do as soon as my son starts walking

actually that's where i have all my toys already as the wife won't tolerate them elsewhere.

besides that's where i spent most of my time anyway working/studying / having coffee breaks while looking at my collection and doing the laundry.

will probably get asthma from all that exposed pink fiberglass insulation on the walls.

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