How much money for kids to destroy stuff?

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  • #611980
    popa_bar_abba
    Participant

    The gemara (78b) says rabbah used to buy cheap keilim for his kids to break, because kids like to break things.

    How much money do you think is appropriate to spend on this? Is it better to just let them break the ugly vase someone gave you that you never use?

    #1004092
    Avram in MD
    Participant

    popa_bar_abba,

    Is it better to just let them break the ugly vase someone gave you that you never use?

    Nope, I’d argue that it’s better to get them something cheap to play with or break. Otherwise, reasoning that you also never use it, they may break the other ugly vase someone gave you that is priceless.

    #1004093
    oyyoyyoy
    Participant

    be mehader. shlish.

    #1004094
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Buy them the cheapest or the most satisfying.

    #1004095
    Rebbe Yid
    Participant

    Recent story out of China that kids were being given books to rip up, wound up ripping up the parents’ cash.

    #1004096
    mobico
    Participant

    I never throw away broken appliances or other things that can be taken apart. I even haul some broken things in from the dumpster. I give these things to my kids with screwdrivers and hammers and pliers etc. They can be solidly occupied for hours with them. And I don’t think that the concern that they will destroy valuable items is too great. Just make sure that boundaries are clear. Obviously, with two-year-olds (such as the one in China), all bets are off.

    #1004097
    funnybone
    Participant

    Did these kids really have such big anger issues? Was it just a way of playing?

    #1004098

    Beware; @mobico, capacitors in appliances may hold lethal charge even when not connected to a power source.

    #1004099
    ItcheSrulik
    Member

    popa: Buy them tools. Then they can break your cheap things and fix your expensive things. Or sometimes the other way around. Whatever. (Disclaimer: This post was almost entirely serious).

    #1004100
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    No, buy them china.

    #1004101
    🐵 ⌨ Gamanit
    Participant

    Give them the advertisements left by your front door. At least they should come to some use…

    #1004102
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Some of us use those as kindling.

    #1004103
    Momofsix
    Member

    I used to give my daughter a cheap box if tissues and let her pull out one by one early in the morning. It got me an extra half hour to forty five minutes of sleep …

    #1004104
    ronrsr
    Member

    When I was a teenager, I volunteered at a recycling depot. I got to spend many satisfying mornings smashing bottles in a dumpster with an iron pipe. Got out most of my aggressions that way.

    #1004105
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    Cool.

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