Kids playing (with) your raers?
disco_che
1,115 Posts
I have a question for the strutters with kids: How do/did you keep young kids from ruining your raers? Any tricks? Some destruction tales to scare me off?
I'm moving my stuff in a month to a flat where we'll have a baby soon and I wondered if there's something I can already do when moving in.
I'm moving my stuff in a month to a flat where we'll have a baby soon and I wondered if there's something I can already do when moving in.
Comments
Good question! I have the same question. I have a 5 month old who will be mobile soon.
One thing I'll be trying is to have a section of *his* records that he can play with all he wants. He's got fisher price record players too. But we'll see.
I know there are some seasoned parent record dudes here, so what's the word?
it is not your house anymore, it is theirs. you are just there to clean up after them.
their own collection is cool but they will skate all over yours given 1/2 a chance.
My boys are 5 and 3 and couldnt care les about Papa's weird records now, but when the oldest was small he loved them.
i used to let him play with the filler:
nothing better than little kids appreciating vinyl though:
Let them do their worst. S'only rekkids, innit?
Still, I'd put the Lost Generation up a shelf if I were you
Anyway, doesn't this thread appear every six months or so?
But really, if you want your kids to not trash your raer, there are two choices:
1) lock them away (records, not kids)
2) the threat of psychological or physical violence.
I find 1) works best, because 2) is subject to the law of diminishing returns.
You're talking about the "Look At What I Found In Daddy's Room" post by Mr. Stroman. I still visit that thread from time to time. Classic.
If you tell a kid not to touch it, he/she will. Give them some dollar bin finds/kids' music from the thrift store to keep as their own so they won't be tempted to touch yours. I don't have kids, but this has worked in my experience. I would worry more about cell phones, contact lenses, household chemicals, etc.
Absolutely, video one stands for fears, video two for hopes.
These are all locked away very easily unlike a few thousands records.
I have two young kids (4 & 6), and they know they're welcome in the record room but they also know not to touch the records or the turntables.
They've grown up around the records and understand they're important to me.
They will learn about respect and art.
When my friend brings the kids over I have a separate turntable and seperate records that I get out for entertainment. I also have a dog they play with and some little wooden farm animals. I give them crayons, markers, and art stuff, too. I really like the drawing on the cover of their copy of Introducing The Beatles, they had fun doing that. Also, they did some great enhancements on the Monkees cover.
The strictly business records stay on the shelf along with the bird, Pizza. They know that the shelf and bird are not their toys, and that the bird is scared of them. So, the kids show the shelf respect and sometimes ask, "can we let the bird out?" I say, "no, not yet because then I would have to catch it and I want to just train it to come out and go back in on it's own comfortably.". They ask what kind of records are on the shelf and I tell them, "singles without sleeves and softer genres that I play with like rap and disco."
The 5 yr old got into it, the 3 yr old just likes the lights and shit. They still bug me to play with the records from time to time, and when we do its always in a 'controlled' environment with me standing by making sure they dont go to crazy. I have been able to establish a boundary with them, so they know when I pull out their records and change the needles they can touch the turntables and have some fun.
When my other records are playing they know they are not allowed to touch them. Been afew moments where they tried, and they get kiced out the room if they do, so now they respect the raers. I also got them playing with the mic now so they got something else to interest them when Im playing records.
I like playing records for them too, cus they got a good ear for music and you spin out at what songs they dig. The 5 yr old was listening to Magic Wand and made me play the vocoder part over and over.... now she wants to hear 'robot records' everytime she comes into the room.
And the little 3 yr old will sometimes hit me up and say..."can we listen to the funky records...I wont touch the reocrds, I just want to listen to them" hehehe
I think the key is that the records at segrated from the normal parts of the house and they only access them under your supervision....
Both of these. Move the real raers up a shelf or three, give them their own records to play with under your supervision and set the boundaries of what they can and can't play with. Mine can pick out any records they want but I'm the one putting the needle on the record. A quicker fix is packing the records tightly together - not as easy for you to get stuff out but pretty much impossible for little fingers. So long as you don't make a huge deal out of your records the kids will get bored of them pretty fast.