I have to start off by saying, first and foremost, my home is my family's home, not a daycare center. The toys that are played with are my children's toys. I have thrown away sooooooooooooooooo many broken toys in the last couple weeks, and I am so tired of it! I never get a straight story about how it got broken, they all point fingers at everyone else! How do you handle broken toys? I don't want to sit and watch them the entire time to see who does what, I have a million other things to do to keep this place running. So what do you all do?

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I was having this problem too and getting really frustrated. I am, slowly, starting to get seperate daycare toys. The "yard sale" time is starting now so I plan on heading out on Saturday mornings to see what I can find.

As my daughter is growing out of her toys I plan on passing them to the daycare.

She is only 18 months and already knows the kids are playing with "her" toys. She just doesn't understand the sharing part yet and it is definitely very frustrating.

I've also been watching craigslist too.

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I have this same issue and wondered what to do about it. I made the mistake of letting the daycare kids play with my barbie's from when I was growing up and all the accessories. All of the older boys that I have, have gone in and ripped off almost every single head and then some are now missing legs! I was livid when I heard one boy saying what he was doing while he was doing it.

I agree though, I did not buy the toys to be abused. I don't have my own children so my toys were bought when I started my daycare. And, I didn't scrimp on the toys so there are as many as if I had my own kids.

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I always had/have separate toys for daycare and my children. Receipts are kept with a log of broken/replaced toys and turned in as a business expense on my taxes. Some years broken toys actually make me money...

I use "Childcare Solutions" online store by Little Tykes and Oriental Trading Company "Childcare Supplies" for my center. They have great toys in bulk sets. Very difficult to break. Low shipping costs. Worth every penny!!!

Also, if you lose receipts you can print out your order history for the entire year, no record keeping

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Most of my daycare toys are acquired previously owned, whether through garage sales, Facebook swap n buys, craigslist, etc. The ones I DO buy new are high quality and aren't as likely to break. And the used ones were cheap so I'm generally not too concerned about them breaking.

Start really observing them playing. If it happens when you are out of the room for whatever reason, take away the privelege of playing unsupervised. Take them with you, or line them up on their butts against the wall while you pee, or whatever works for you. I had a 4yo I had to bring with me EVERYWHERE I went because if I didn't, he'd pester the snot out of the other kids and start doing things deliberately against the rules to get the younger kids following, thus getting everyone in trouble. It was a PITA.

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I have one dcb who has broke so many of my toys, he's had things taken away for a week because he can't treat my stuff respectfully, standing on them, throwing them hard on the ground, my son who is now 13 got a really sturdy dump truck when he was 1 year old, until he was like 4 my daughter and son would push each other in this, that's how sturdy it was, of course it was handed down to the daycare kids, so the kids were playing outside and one of the other dcb threw a ball down hard onto the ground, which is fine it's a ball, he copies him but throws the truck hard onto the ground and broke it, I was so livid, my son was mad just for sentimental reasons, I told his mom how he broke it and how he had been breaking toys being too rough and standing on them ect, she made him write me a sorry card and he had to bring me 2 cars from HIS toys to replace it, it was nothing close to what I had but she had great intentions, I liked it, BUT this kid is still rough and disrepectful of my stuff at times, I immediately walk over stick out my hand and tell him sorry but he can't play with it the rest of the day, if it keeps happening it's taken away for the rest of the week. He's gotten alot better!
Its really frustrating though, spend money for them to have fun and they ruin it.

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When I first started doing daycare, I allowed the daycare children into my daughter's room. Wow everything she received new from her birthday CHristmas, etc. was broken!!! I stopped that very quickly!!! No daycare children are allowed into my children's rooms any longer!! There is enough broken without new toys!!! I actually bought a $350.00 little tikes playhous for $150.00 out of Menards(hardware store's play area) I was so excited about it, and within 1 month, a daycare boy slammed the door too hard once, and cracked it off. Now it continues to fall off!! I was so mad!!!!! GOod thing I didn't pay $350.00 for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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This is a snippet from "Homeschooling on a Shoestring" that I really liked:

"[A] child who has too many belongings develops a bored, blasé attitude about his possessions. Soon he needs bigger and better and more wondrous things to generate enthusiasm. This puts a crimp in his natural eagerness to learn and to enjoy new experiences. "Is that all there is?" is a sad attitude to instill in a child. An added difficulty is the task of teaching a child to take care of his belongings when he has a glut of them. Why should a child care if a toy gets broken when the supply of toys is virtually endless?"

We have cut WAY back on how many toys the kids have access to at a time and it has helped out a lot. And I keep my kids' toys in their rooms and the daycare kids are not allowed to go back there to play. I keep out only a small selection of durable toys I bought new or second-hand along with the basics (blocks/manipulatives, puzzles, art stuff).

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