What Do You Say About Breaking Toys Or Damaging Property

[Abigail]

What do you have in your contract about a child breaking toys on purpose or damaging property? Do you state the items need to be replaced or the parents have to pay for it?

[boysx5]

I don't have that in my contract but sure wish I did I have a three year old boy who breaks everything so I decided that he only gets a few toys at at time so this way it saves some of my toys

[Blackcat31]

Mine just says "Normal wear and tear in childcare is expected. However, anything a child willfully destroys or damages is the parents responsibilty to repair or replace."

[Abigail]

Originally Posted by Blackcat31

Mine just says "Normal wear and tear in childcare is expected. However, anything a child willfully destroys or damages is the parents responsibilty to repair or replace."

This is good. Do you mind if I use this? It looks like this so far. Normal wear and tear in child care is expected. However, anything your child willfully destroys or damages, you will be responsible for paying to replace or repair the item. If you have any other recommendations please share!

[nannyde]

I don't have this in my contract.

One of the things the parents pay for in my care is very close supervision whenever the kids are up. We have a one adult to four child ratio. We have an adult within a few feet of them at all times so they don't really have the opportunity to break anything.

I also pick toys that are not easily broken. The toys are divided into infant toys that only the infants can play with, one to two year old toys, and three to five year old toys. The one to two year old toys are indestructable. We don't allow kids to move over to the big kids side (3-5 year old) until they have learned all of our rules of play and do not put toys in their mouth. We work with the little ones very closely between the first and second year to teach them our rules of play. Many of the rules of play are in place to protect breakage of the toys.

With infant areas, 1-2 area, and 3-5 area we are able to separate the toys and keep the children in the area where the toys that they have access to fit their ability to behave properly with them.

So we rarely have to toss toys. We do check the infant toys regularly and remove anything that has been worn from chewing. Other than that we don't have to toss toys. I have about 40-50 dollars worth of infant toy loss per year and maybe 5-10 dollars a year in 3-5 year old toys. We don't have any loss on the one to two year toys.

Because I have done this for a long time I can tell by looking at a toy whether or not it will have a liklihood of breaking or being abused. It is becoming more and more difficult to find toys that can withstand generation after generation of kids. I pretty much buy toys made in the eighties and very early nineties. They seem to be of a higher quality. When I find toys that are really sturdy I make sure to get a good quantity of them. I fear it will be virtually impossible to find "day care sturdy" toys in the future.

One good trick in deciding whether kids will be able to break toys is to watch what they fixate on when they are playing. If they are repeatedly doing a motion with a part on the toy it most often means that they see the flaw in it and are focusing on that flaw. The area they are repeatedly fixating on will be the part that will break. You see this primarily in the "moveable parts" of the toy. If it's not really breakable they will use the toy as it is intended.

[Blackcat31]

Originally Posted by Abigail

This is good. Do you mind if I use this? It looks like this so far. Normal wear and tear in child care is expected. However, anything your child willfully destroys or damages, you will be responsible for paying to replace or repair the item. If you have any other recommendations please share!

Use away!! I find this statement added to my contract covers alot of ground. During interviews I make a point of covering this subject with parents. In every situation, I use my best judgment. I know the kids I have well enough to know if something was accidnetally broken or broke on purpose. EX: I had one little girl, age 4, who would hide in corners and peel all the stickers off anything that had one....she peeled all the stickers off my Little Tikes kitchen center and her mom spent hours on the internet finding a replacement set (only cost $7) but she invested ALOT of time. Her DD eventually stopped picking and peeling...I'm not sure how mom stopped her, but whatever she did worked...her DD never did it again. Fortunately, I don't have a problem with toys broken on purpose much. (knock on wood)