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When Preschoolers Start Destroying Property

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By: Jagpreet Kaur, In Weddings
Updated: Thursday, May 10, 2007
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The difference between the destructive and creative play is not known for preschoolers until parents tell them the difference. Usually when infants start crawling, they start playing with things like, decoration pieces, toys, your dressing table, sometimes decorating walls with a pen; means whatever is in reach of their hands. So before your child reaches his first birthday, try to tell him by showing what he can and cannot paint, tear up, or take apart. This will prevent your little artist from doing unintentional damage to his or other’s property consistently teach your child to be proud of and to care for his little possessions, and let his creative ways flow in appropriate ways such as on drawing paper not on wall or with a take apart play phone and not your real phone. So there are some better ideas to prevent and to solve this kind of problem: 
Buy toys that are strong enough to be investigated without getting destroyed:
It’s natural for preschoolers to try to take apart and put together toys that lend themselves to this kind of activity. In order to stimulate the kind of creative play you want to encourage, buy only those toys, with which he can do something like blocks of building or the parts of some little machine, stacking toys, push button games and so on, with which he can do something creative on his own. Avoid buying stuffed
animal toys that just sit there and your child has a reason to destroy it.
Tell him the specific rules about caring for and playing with toys:
Young children don’t innately know the value of things or how to play with everything appropriately, so teach them how to do things properly e.g. tell him to use crayons on coloring books only and this the only use of crayons, books are not for tearing only for reading. Tell him if he wants to like to tear something, provide him with lots of old clothes and materials for paper mach, dress up, painting, or other activities, so your preschooler won’t substitute new or valuable items for his play projects.
Supervise your child’s play and remind him about caring:
Don’t confuse your child and make him test the legal waters over and over by letting him destroy something he shouldn’t. Increase your chances of keeping destruction to a minimum by letting your child know when he’s taking wonderful care of his toys. This reminds him of the rule, helps him feel good about himself, and make him proud of his possessions
Overcorrect the mess and use official rebuke:
If your child is one or two years old, teach him to take care of things by having him clean up the messes he makes e.g. if he draws anything on the wall, he must clean not only the writing but all the waters in the room. This overcorrection of the problem gives your child a sense of ownership and caring. But if he did something wrong, tell him why it was wrong and what he should have done instead.
But then child is after all a child himself if he breaks something, don’t overreact and don’t over punish him. Your anger communicates the idea that you care more for your things than your child. Even if your child damages something valuable to you, it doesn’t give you permission to damage your child. Rather throw a tantrum yourself, put the valuable item away until he’s old enough to understand the value.

 

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