In article , toto says...

On 2 Feb 2006 20:17:29 -0800, Banty wrote:

One thing to consider - one of the things that drives me crazy is when my son
was younger, or friends with *visiting* children would behave roughly toward my
son's stuff, and the parents have an 'oh well they're kids' attitude. I say "oh
well they're kids that's why they need to *learn*." What they learn at home
*will* be reflected in what they do elsewhere. And they don't unlearn it as
quickly as you think. Like, not even by time they're sharing dorm rooms!

When my ds was 3, he had a collection of blown easter eggs that we had
decorated. He was extremely careful with them as they were very
delicate. He kept them for around 2 years. Then one day, he had a
friend come over (they were around 5 by then) and he showed his
friend the collection. This friend threw them and stomped on them
and destroyed them all. My son was very upset. The friend's parents
didn't think much of it as after all they were just *easter eggs.* Ds
never invited this boy home after that though they still played at
school and were friends there.


It isn't just the kids.

When my son was younger (in fact, until recently and he's 13) he was really into
die-cast little cars (like Matchbox). We'd always put them carefully away into
boxes with slots for them or my son would park them in rows to put them away.

One evening, I had friends over, and he was playing cars with their daughter,
and they had pretty much taken them *all* out. When it was time to go home, he
and the girl started cleaning up (he had to initiate). My friend, her father,
seeing this, thought he'd speed the process up and 'make it fun' by having the
kids pitch the cars across the room into a toy box! She and her Dad were
throwing them, with them smashing agaisnt each other, chipping paint, with my
son crying and objecting, the puzzled Dad saying to my son "What's WRONG??". I
intervened and said "oh, we'll take care of that" and later had to explain to my
son that *this* time it didn't work out to have his friend help him clean up as
usual but he should still have his friends help him clean up before they go
home.

ARrgggh. You could always tell which ones got thrown into the toy box before I
went to his room to see what the commotion was about.

Banty