Wanting to take a toy everywhere

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And enjoying the journey

I vote for your approach on the ADD, btw. Unless it is extreme. Sorry to hear about the divorce.

Thanks everyone for your responses. It's interesting to read so many different parenting techniques, which may or may not be dependant on the personality of the child.

To explain my situation a little more, my daughter is particularly strong-willed and oppositional, as well as having this need for toys. In fact, until about a year ago, I had been reading books on parenting strong-willed/ spirited children. She just never gives in. I've been accused by some people of giving in to her too easily. But they weren't aware that I had been arguing with her about various things for a whole day and giving in on something small started to become acceptable. It takes a lot of effort to win an argument with her, so when it's something insignificant, I appear to give up without a fight, but I don't have the energy for constant arguments.

So, we have come to a compromise. We've bought a little teddy on a cord, that she can wear round her neck. It's a necklace really, but the teddy is a little larger than normal jewellery. At the moment, she's in agreement with us about this being the only thing she can take to classes. She goes to an athletics class and an opera workshop and I don't see this interfering with anything. But, as with everything else, we'll have to play it by ear and re-address the matter, if any teachers tell us that it's causing her to become distracted or to annoy the other kids.

But, as we were walking to school this morning she said she'd forgotten the teddy. I told her that I'd need to speak with her teachers about it before we could take it in, so she accepted this. She had a wooden snake with her, which she handed to me in the playground, without a fuss, for the first time ever. Maybe the fact that we've met her half way has helped somewhat in explaining to her that we've not been trying to punish her.

Thanks

We're having a fairly minor issue with Youngest, who (at 3) needs a growing collection of items close at hand in order to sleep.

It started with a weird stuffed thing from Ikea, which he's named "Spooky".

And then he added his brother's old Po doll, from The Teletubbies, which he calls "Mia."

And then a knitted robot his mother made, called "Boss."

And then a plastic Happy Meal toy of a Power Ranger: Saburai.

And then a hard plastic eyeglass case, which he likes to snap shut. He's got a name for it, but it's hard to make out.

Most recently, it's a variety of Matchbox cars, which he'll change every few days. Last night, our inability to find his "gray car" caused a despairing meltdown.

All of these things are required for bedtime. All of them.

It's manageable, but considering that he spends his nights on the couch with me, it's getting crowded. And there's nothing quite like waking up to "Tubby custard! Tubby custard!" shrieked into your ear, when he managed to press the damned thing' button in his sleep.

I hear ya - I often wish that they made only one color and type of Hot Wheels car (Matchbox is intolerable at our house, they MUST be HotWheels) because the amount of time we spend looking for "the" car that is DS's current favorite is off the charts.

That's just like my daughter. Her bed is full of stuff too. She becomes attached to the weirdest things as well, that can even include scraps of paper, twigs, stones and snail shells. If we accidentally throw out one of these things, she can have a meltdown and cry out for her 'favourite'. In fact, everything is her favourite and we have a really hard time disposing of toys. She has a large box of McDonalds toys and we managed to persuade her to part with half of them, which went to a charity shop. We don't even go to McDonalds - my mum's next door neighbour goes with her family. They all get happy meals and, as the youngest is 13, they give the toys to my girl.

Yep, my girl too. She's four. Mostly it's all little things, beads, craft jewels, coins, stones, screws, little eraser's or other stuff that she will collect throughout the day. Since most of her stuff she collects is really little, we're encouraging her to put a few small items in her pocket during school or other outings, it helps her transition better between activities. But because everything is so small, she misplaces them, they fall under the furniture etc and she'll meltdown, but it's getting better, she's using her words to ask for 'help find it'.

She sleeps with her stuff too, it will either be in her bed with her, or she'll have made a pattern or design with it on her floor. The next morning after she wakes up, I can take the whole collection and throw it in the garbage and she could care less, because she's already moved on making a new collection for the day, lol. I just try to get her to talk about her things, expand her collections to different types of little things etc etc. Just use it to pull out speech!

We can also get rid of those weird things pretty quickly (I mean the paper scraps, etc), but not the toys. I bought a ring binder and some card, to make a scrap book, and if she really wants to keep that bus ticket or wrapper, she sticks it in there.

Yes my daughter did this when she was 5 and started prep-school. Three little animals.

Our main concern was her throwing them in the middle of class without warning.

By the time she was 6 we started preparing her during the holiday break, convincing her the toys wanted to stay home. The ploy worked. She does need something to hold during class but medication seems to have reduced her anxiety a little.

Hey Fnord out of curiosity do any of your children have AS?

Our son can do the same thing. However, what we do is we deal with his fit in the car. We allow him to have the toy or item in the car but when he has to get out we say that "toy" needs to stay in the car. He use to throw bigger fits that were drawn out but over time they have dissipated and most of the time now he doesn't have a fit. Just be consistent that your child can only have it in certain areas and stand by what you say. They know what buttons to press just like a "regular" child does. On things like this we try and think that he is a "normal" child and don't give any reaction and then change the scenery and discussion and the tantrum stops. Good luck I know it is hard when you want your child to have what comforts them but they have to understand they can't always get what they want. This is a very good lesson to learn.

my daughter has a stuffy she takes everywhere with her. she is twelve now and he 'waits' for her at the office in her school while she is in class and has for the last two years. before that he went into class with her. i see no reason not to allow it, provided the toy is neither noisy or dangerous in any way. her teachers were warned in advance that the toy would be attending with her and i didn't really give them the option to say no.

My son is 30 now and he still takes all his toys everywhere with him. He knows to leave them in the car when we go out now, but he takes his mirrors, and a damp cloth to wipe them, everywhere. He doesn't look directly at anything, he looks via the mirrors. As he is non-verbal I don't know why he does this.

I haven't made him give up his toys, he hasn't got any friends and they seem to be friend substitutes, he talks to them although he doesn't make any sense to us. He has smurf and monkey and miss piggy and fran and earl and robbie and mr richfield stuffed into an old stereo speaker whenever he goes anywhere. At home he has them arranged all around him along with the matchbox cars and robots that he only looks at when he's home.

I used to wonder if I should throw them out and make him"grow up", but I'm glad I didn't. He is calmer when he can see them. He glances at them every few seconds. He has had some of these same items for over 20 years. For a few years I had to put him into care because I got burnout looking after him, but he is back home now. I'm glad that at the various places he lived during those years, no-one threw his things away.

Every case is different, but for my son his wanting to take a toy everywhere is OK by me as it calms him. His toys don't look appropriate, but at least they are silent! BTW - he never took them to school when he was integrated into "normal" school. His choice.

I don't know if it's right for me to post here since I don't have a kid... but I have experience. I've done this all of my life.

While in school I'd always bring a stuffed animal with me. It was so comforting for me, it really helped with anxiety a lot.

When going on trips I'd try to take everything I owned with me. Thankfully I've grown out of that, but even now (at 20) I don't feel right if I don't bring something from home that I can cuddle with.

It's great for you to post here. Don't ever feel you shouldn't, as it helps to get the perpective of the child, in an adult voice. I often post in this forum about my own experiences as a child, not as a parent.

Are you sure that the teacher will have an issue with your child bringing a parrot to class for comfort?.

A couple of years ago I spent 3 hours twice a week late at night with the same teacher as an intensive after school course.

During this 3 hours there were times when nobody felt like doing any hard work and we just talked about whatever was on our mind, from a concert I was going to to what someone saw on tv, sometimes we even used the class projector to watch youtube videos.

One of this times our teacher started talking about this girl that needed a doll to be with her at all times to feel comfortable and brought it with her into class. My classmates and I were a bit surprised by this but apparently she had a talk with the parents about it and decided to give it a chance to see if it could work.

Apparently this girl that had issues answering the most simple questions by herself was able to do twice as much work as her classmates(the doll had to do the exercises as well)and felt confident enough to reply to two questions out loud provided that the doll was with her at class. The situation was explained to the other kids on her class and none of them freaked out about it because they understood that she needed some sort of different treatment.

Perhaps you could try talking with your son´s teacher and explaining the situation so that this isnt an issue anymore.

We have parents evening tonight at school and I will be raising this with them as the thing about toys is such a big deal to her. When she has been injured, she has never sought comfort from anyone and has just wanted to suck her thumb and cuddle Duncan, her favourite bear. It doesn't have to be him these days, any toy that she likes will do.

Also, her class has a toy monkey and a child gets to take him home each night. She has been waiting ages for this and finally got him on Monday (26th out of 31 children). She was a different little girl when I collected her and she even sat and concentrated on the monkey's diary entry, that she had to write. I've never seen her so enthusiastic about homework. She even went to bed at a more reasonable time than she has been going lately. But, he was returned on Tuesday and she came out of school in the same mood as normal.

But, the problem with taking toys is that I've been told that it does have an impact on class at times. When she was at nursery, she held her teddy right in front of a little boy's face. He was non-verbal, got frustrated by this and scratched her. I've seen her doing this a few times and have told her off, but so far, it has had no effect. And when she took the plastic dinosaur to her drama class, she was annoyed at children knocking it over and wouldn't participate. If she would just leave it at the side, it would be fine. But she doesn't want to do that, has a meltdown when it is taken away, then comes out of class and refuses to go back in. I believe the little teddy on the string round her neck is OK for after school classes, but I doubt school will accept it without a fight.