[Lifeline_MD]

Ok, I'm nowhere near being a father, but I can offer some advice.

I grew up in the early 90s and inherited the three big 80s lines (Joe, Transformers, He-man) from my brother who had gotten them while growing up. He had kept most of them in almost perfect shape until they were passed on to me.

I think I was about 3 when I started playing with He-man and 4 with Joes. Because my brother still liked the toys to some degree, he simply told me to be careful with them, and to limit the rough play with them, because they were old and fragile. At four I (at least in my memory) was old enough to understand that these meant something to him, and that I should be careful not to damage them.

My suggestion to you would therefore be simply to sit down and talk to your son about why these figures mean so much to you and why you'd like him to be careful when he plays with them. If you explain yourself, he should be old enough to understand the basic concepts, and he will respect you for sharing your collection, and having enough trust in him to allow him to play with them.

In fact, if you have time to supervise his play time, why not bring join him? Bring down a small sampling of Joes and Cobras and play the side he doesn't want. Thats how I got my start on Joes. After he learns how careful you are when playing (and as you've probably seen, most kids imitate their parents pretty quickly), he'll likely pick up your carefulness with the Joes, and some of you're worries will be assuaged.

Even though he should be careful with the joes if you take this approach, keep yojoe.com bookmarked to undo any weapons/accessories swaps that are almost guaranteed to occur. (Though again, you should be able to explain to him that these are each figure's specialized gear that only they know how to use, which should limit the swapping).

[arch2b]

i have joes strictly for display, some to play with and my kids have joes to play with. they understand the difference between thier play joes and my display joes in that they are soley mine (i share almost everything else), they are out of reach, and are important to me like my computer (also hands off for them).

my sons army is actually bigger than my own and i acheived this mostly from buying loose figures, lots, etc. they have nearly everything i do which also helps avoid the 'i want that' issue. i do get the occasional whining about not being able to play with mine on display but i simply take them to thier plastic joe bin and play with thiers. as son as they see me want thiers, they want them too.

i was concerned about them being rough with them at first however i got over that quickly. accessories get lost, vehicles get broken, it's all part of playing with toys. i do not tolerate senseless toy violence though, no tossing toys at each other or across the room, no smashing them into things, etc. it's a fine line between enjoying and respecting thier toys.

take thier wii for example. if i come home nad find discs lying out and controllers on the floor, i take it away for a week. if they scratch a disc on the floor, it's gone not to be replaced (unless by accident), etc. if they can not take the responsibility to take care of thier toys, they do not get to play with them. with 2 boys, it's a constant struggle though. i've had to take the wii away many times...

on the parenting side, having a spouse that understands and supports your effort makes all the difference. mine is less strict due to her childhood experiences than i am thus i am usually the gruff bad guy complaining about finding things everywhere. have a meaningful talk wiht your spouse and agree on a common approach and most importantly, enforce it evenly.

[meyerc13]

This is a great thread. I started collecting the 25th line earlier this year after my brother started buying them for my 5 year old nephew (Although to be honest I'm not sure who the toys are really for!). My son is going to be 3 years old in about a month, and initially I started buying them so that he and I could play GI Joe, but he is just too young right now. These figures have great articulation, but I'm not sure how durable they are.

My initial compromise was giving him some Power Team Elite figures, and he doesn't know the difference he thinks any 4" action figure is a GI Joe. The problem is, the PTE figures are fragile as well. One of his figures lost an arm just below the shoulder, then later the same arm came off at the shoulder. He wants to keep playing with the figure and asks "Daddy... fix it please... please fix it." So I put the arm back on, but within seconds or minutes the arm falls off again. As I'm fixing it, I'm having a vision of him playing with the GI Joe figures and duke arms popping off at the wrist... heads popping off, knives and guns being lost... I really want these figures to be figures we can play with together, I'm not displaying them or keeping them MIB, these are toys after all; but it's killing me that he is too young to play with them... and I know it will be years before he'll be old enough to treat these figures with enough care that they won't be in parts and pieces.

So in the meantime... I've tried to find some Tonka action figures and similar low-articulation, high-durability figues so that he can play "GI Joe" with Daddy. By the way, his idea of playing GI Joe is like this:

Figure 1: "You go Sams Club with me?"
Figure 2: "OK... me drive Jeep."
Figure 1: "Me drive helicopter"
Figure 2: "We go movies now?"
Figure 1: "OK.. me like movies. See Veggie Tales?"
Figure 2: "OK... me want popcorn and candy."
.
.
.
etc.

Oh... he also thinks the rifles on Daddy's GI Joe figures are swords (came up with that on his own)... and the guns on the vehicles are telescopes (my wife gave him that idea trying to shield him from the concept of guns until he is a bit older).

[minstrelboy]

I have a daughter who just turned nine and is with me for the summer. She was eyeing up my Joes, and eventually asked if she could play with them. At first it was just the girls (Lady Jaye, Scarlett and Baroness), but then she started with a few of the guys too. But Lady Jaye is her favorite, so I bought her one of her own.

[Gunzlingr]

My 8 year old is very careful with his toys, always has been. Most of the stuff I buy he can play with when he wants if he is carefull. I do hestitate to let him mess with my 82-84 figures, but so far he hasn't broken any of them (he did drop his straight arm clutch and the head snapped off)

[arch2b]

my youngest just turned 4. he's had them since 3. toy safety comes down to parenting. watch them, teach them. anyone can give a kid a toy and leave them to fend for themselves. a parent guides them.
i too bought pte and it's junk. i ended up more worried about their small peices (everything falls apart) than joes and small accessories. i started very early with toy training and not to eat toys or put things in his mouth. it also helps that he had to play with his older brother so heplayed with toys a little more mature than his age. he skipped the fisher price stuff completely. now he can hunt for joe weapons bettere than me and knows the cg revolver is for cg, etc. he has lost almost all the windows for his hiss tanks somehow though so it's a constant trade off. i had to jbweld the canons on the awe strikers too. the no longer elevate which they don't care about.

only issue i had was with hotwheels tossing last year. the little one nailed his brother in the knee while in the shower and took off. i had to punish him while laughing at the hit and run style with a hotwheel. kids do the funniest things sometimes.

[sgtapon]

meyerc13 thats a pretty cool idea. if you have a family dollar, dollar general or fred meyers around you i'd say get him some of the valor vs venom figures their about $2 to $3 a piece and are pretty durable figures. i actually picked my nephew some of those up today so since he recently destroyed a few of my rare ones i figured if he wants to play with joes then i'll just pick him a up a few VvV for family dollar. So now he has ace, stalker, baroness, 3 sand vipers and 2 tele vipers to play his brains out. i can already see the accessories being lost and g.i.joe getting its butt kicked by his human torch, incredible hulk, batman, robin and superman team.

[meyerc13]

Quote:

Originally Posted by sgtapon

meyerc13 thats a pretty cool idea. if you have a family dollar, dollar general or fred meyers around you i'd say get him some of the valor vs venom figures their about $2 to $3 a piece and are pretty durable figures.

I forgot to mention that I also found some of those dollar store Joes for him. He has Ace, Dusty, Baroness, Stalker... and they seem far more durable than the 25th line. I took off their accessories because he does have a tendency to put things in his mouth at times, and we also have a six month old who daughter will be crawling soon... but he loves those figures and they are true GI Joes. My mom has also found some old Joes at rummage sales that I let him have. I can't wait for the re-released VvV stuff so I can pick up a few more real Joes for him, I just hope the price isn't too high (the $5 at KB is insane compared to the $2 at the local Family Dollar stores).

[snakeeyes0217]

My son is almost 3 and knows the distinct difference between my toys and his toys and treats mine gently and asks if he can touch them.

We go to toy shows like the one in Bridgeview IL together and find great deals on loose and "less collectible" toys for him.

Additionally, the last day of Wizard World was also a boon for him as they had tons of Godzilla toys at "I don't want to pack these up and takes these back with me" prices.

But I do tell him, "When you're older, we'll play with these together," and "Someday, these will all be yours."

[82joe]

I've read through all your posts and thanks for the interest.....

I do get down on the ground and play Joe/Batman/Ninja Turtles of whathaveyou with my son.....it's great and I love it. I don't care all that much if something breaks...they are toys after all. He knows I have my special stuff and for the most part he is very respectful. After all, like most of you I'll probably hand it all down to him one day.

But how do you all handle the second part of my question? How do you seperate "collecting" from "playing"? Does anybody ever worry that they are stressing the wrong message to their kids? that toys are to be "collected" and placed on a shelf for display and not to be roughed around and broken while playing? When I was growing up I didn't know any adults like myself. I didn't know grown men collected toys (baseball cards and stuff like that yeah...but not toys)....sure when I was a kid we would go to flea markets and auctions and there would be tons of vintage 70's toys available.......but they were just that, they were toys....I don't know what I'm trying to say. Sometimes I just feel weird having a toy collection and fear I'm sending the wrong message to the kids.