Have you ever bought your kid a toy that you found out was so annoying that you decided to tread on it while walking to have a reason to throw it away?
What kind of toy was it?
LOL! Well, my kids still remember when I crunched up a video game disc into little bits because they were fighting over it.
No, but I have made toys disappear and pretended that toys can't be fixed after my son breaks them. The most annoying have been whistles and a roaring monster truck. They've all disappeared and when he asks I say I don't know!
Nope I just throw them away. My kids have learned to avoid me with that which will annoy. They know which ones do. I lead a peaceful life. :)
i have removed the batteries and claimed it was broken. i've also thrown out some of my husbands ugly shirts when he wasn't looking. ;)
No, but like many of the other mama's have said, I just don't replace the batteries. Mine is still young enough I can get away with it. :)
No but I have secretly taken out the batteries. Then ill be like oh well I guess its broken. My son can still play with it but it doesn't make any noise.
No I haven't crushed a toy but there are toys that do not get their batteries replaced...sorry, honey, we don't have the right size batteries. There is a talking dog toy that I stuffed in the hall closet which will never see the light of day again.
no. i wouldn't purposefully destroy my child's belongings nor would I purposefully destroy another person's belongings - that's just rude.
If I don't like - I ask them NOT to play with it when I'm around...
No, but super annoying toys do seem to find a way to get 'lost' indefinitely ;)
Guilty. Usually I just take the batteries out or put a piece of tape over the speaker to make it quieter though.
No. Since I am an adult, I just deal with annoying toys if they make my kids happy. My daughter has a light-up butterfly that plays music that makes my head want to explode, but when it starts to get on my nerves I tune it out until I can't anymore and then I simply ask her to turn the music off because it gives Mommy a headache. She always does so gladly-and she's 2. I would never stoop to breaking their toys because I didn't like the noises it makes. My kids would get into huge trouble if they got caught purposely destroying something.
No, never. No toy annoys me that badly.
Plus, it is theirs. I can imagine my child being somewhat upset because I destroyed something they enjoy, regardless of its annoying properties.
No, but they do find themselves in the Goodwill bag :)
No, but I have tried to use the King Solomon trick of offering to break a toy in half if my older son wouldn't share with his brother. He saved the toy and shared...for a few minutes.
I would never purposely destroy my chid's belongings, especially in front of them! How traumatic and rude!
I have asked that they play with the toy in their room, that they turn it down or I've said that they've played with it long enough and it's time to put it away.
I have also "forgotten" to buy batteries. If they toy isn't played with for a few months I'll often move it into the garage for another month. If they don't ask for it, I take it to Goodwill.
No.
Early on I learned to check toys for an 'off' button before I bought them so I knew I could shut the noise off.
I also put stickers over areas where the sound comes out to make an over loud toy more bearable.
My son had a Bob The Builder crane or something that the batteries were running out so it would just randomly talk & move without warning. One night when my husband was overseas I got up in the middle of the night to get a bottle for my younger daughter & that damn thing started moving & talking & made me just about pee myself. I walked into the living room, picked it up, walked to the front door, unlocked it, & tossed that evil thing right out the front door. It remained in exactly that spot kind of under the deck until the day we moved out of that apartment!
LOL!!!
No, I have never intentionally broken a toy so that I would have an excuse to throw it out...but toys get moved to grandma's house, accidentaly swept up with the broom, moved to the closet then donated once the kids forget about it...or I just toss/donate to my heart's content when I do a big clean a couple of times a year. The kids haven't figured it out YET. Usually they are cheapo happy meal toys or goodie bag toys from parties, small things that are junk that just accumulate.
I just saw your post and have to say how darned funny it is! And YES, I have broken a toy (or two) because there is absolutely NO other way to pry toys away from my boy. He knows every single toy, down to dice and jacks! I got a good laugh out of how few people say they have broken a toy.
Thanks for posting such a good-humored question.
No, I just give it to Goodwill. 99% of the stuff in the kids rooms they would not miss. Or I should say they don't miss....
No, but I do just pick them up occasionally and toss them in the trash can. Unfortunally my daughter almost always sees it in there and retreives it and scolds me for throwing it. You are smarter than me by breaking it. I will do that next time.
No, but I let a friend "accidentally" smash a ceramic boob mug my brother made for husband when we were packing and moving. He was using it as a pencil, elastic, and paper clip holder.
Yes. a big barbie camper she kept parking in the middle of the room. she got one later at her birthday and she takes care of it.
Then her friend fell on it while running to get something and totally broke it.
she is not getting another one so we taped it up. She has since "kidproofed" her ceramics she made and no friends are allowed in the office so we have a safe place.
Nothing is coming to mind right now... but I'm sure I have... or let the dog eat it... or just left it at grandma's on purpose...
Nope - I just toss them in the garbage. Some toys need to be eliminated. Like the obnoxious guitar my daughter has. It's so loud - even on low- and it never stops.
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No, I put it in the Gunny Bag.
The Gunny Bag was a yellow pillowcase with an evil face with an open, drooling mouth drawn on it with black felt pen. The Gunny Bag came out and consumed toys when they were left out after the request had been made to put them away. Once a toy went into the Gunny Bag it could only be redeemed by my son's performing some specified chores. (And, once in a while, a toy might actually permanently disappear down its gullet - imagine that!)
My son was terrified of the Gunny Bag. He thought, on some level, that it was real. So, he took the threat of the Gunny Bag emerging very seriously. It was a real deterrent to irritating toys always being underfoot.
As for smashing irritating toys, I found the easiest way to handle that one was not to buy them in the first place. Then I did not have to worry about getting rid of them.
The general rule around our household was that if it was advertized on or based on a children's TV show AT ALL, we did not get it. (Note that these shows were also banned in our household.) And, if it was battery operated or already assembled, we did not get it. We stuck with basic toys that allowed for imaginitive play, such as building sets, models, Legos, art and craft equipment, toy trucks, chemistry sets, microscopes, etc. There is some mess involved in these, but the skill and mental development that these toys allow is phenomenal compared with toys that are already made for the child and/or that have stories/actions "preprogrammed" into them by TV shows.
The most disturbing toy we ever got was a Super Shooter Squirt Gun. You know, the squirt gun that you can aim at and hit something 50 yards away. This is a seriously bad concept in the hands of a five-year-old.
Anyway, my husband got one for my son (after he saw it advertised on TV) over my strenuous objections. I had stated that there was no way on the planet I was going to pay $10 for a squirt gun with which he could nail me at a 50 foot distance. It wasn't going to happen. But, thanks to my husband, it did.
So, what happened? My son never used it on me. It actually turned out to be the best cat discipline tool ever devised. All we had to do was to pump it up and squirt it once at one of our four cats, when the cat was misbehaving. The other three learned vicariously from the one cat's misfortune. After that, we never even had to squirt it. All we had to do was to pick it up and pump it once, and any misbehaving cat immediately stopped misbehaving. So, no need to step on it.
:-)
Good luck.
No, but we don't buy a lot of battery operated toys either. There was this one hammer that my oldest son got for a baby gift, it had no shut off at alland was the most annoying sounding thing. He loved it, and when the batteries died we never replaced them, and he didn't care. He still loved it. Which inspired us to buy more toys that require imagination. Blocks, lego's, push cars, dolls, etc.
