Letting go...

[Tap Dancer]

She doesn't have access to scissors or markers or pens so I am not worried about destruction in that way.

Even if your daughter doesn't have scissors or markers, watch that she doesn't chew on the ponies. I chewed Windy's horn and ears. I didn't harm many of my ponies, but poor Windy wasn't so lucky.

Anyway, I can understand not wanting to give your G1 ponies away. If they get destroyed, it's not like you can easily replace them. I'd wait until she's older and more mature before giving her your old toys.

[ashlyne]

If it feels like you may be flooding her with too many ponies, or she's only concerned about how many she can get, I get why you might be thinking twice about handing them over.   Having that collector mindset, even in a really young child, can easily just turn into a numbers thing and the individual ponies aren't special. There isn't enough time from one pony to the next to enjoy, play and bond with it. 

Something that might help you both would be to only hand over a pony or playset for special occasions.  Make it a big deal.   Even play up the actual handing over of the pony, like play out a special pony unveiling.   But the key may be to slow down the giving, and give one maybe when she does something helpful (like chores), or plays nicely with another kid, or even something as simple as reaches a certain height. I'm not sure how old she is, but you can adjust as she gets older. My most memorable ponies are tied to either events or achievements, and they became more special to me because of that. 

[Nilenna]

I would probably let them play with some of the ponies. If I had more than one of the same for example. Or the most common ones. But maybe not Mimic and other like her.

[LadyMoondancer]

Something that might help you both would be to only hand over a pony or playset for special occasions.  Make it a big deal.   Even play up the actual handing over of the pony, like play out a special pony unveiling.   But the key may be to slow down the giving, and give one maybe when she does something helpful (like chores), or plays nicely with another kid, or even something as simple as reaches a certain height. I'm not sure how old she is, but you can adjust as she gets older. My most memorable ponies are tied to either events or achievements, and they became more special to me because of that. 

I really like that idea.  And I agree that a flood of ponies could make them less special.

I think the other thing to be cautious of, as collectors, is sort of . . . burdening a child with ponies?  What I mean by that is just sort of assuming that ponies will mean as much to your child as they did to you.  (The general "you", not lovesbaby squirmy in particular.) 

Back in the late 90s there was a lady who collected ponies with her young daughter.  She had a nearly complete US set of ponies and was just trying to finish up with the mail orders and more HTF ponies . . . when her daughter finally told her that she didn't want to collect ponies anymore.  Apparently the girl had been trying to work up the courage to address it for a while.  I think she didn't want to disappoint her mom.

I doubt there are many kids out there who HATE ponies and most kids welcome new toys no matter what, but at the same time kids can be very sensitive about "pleasing" their parents.

[SunSnail]

    There are a lot of good ideas in these posts!

    One idea I can add is that you could first give her a just a few of them, keep them up on a high shelf, and explain that they're ponies for you two to share during only special pony playtime with Mom! That way, you can observe her with them and teach careful play by example-- and with direction-- until you're sure she knows all the gentle-play rules. 

    If you're unsure whether she'd definitely be careful-- even under supervision-- with the ones you have now and don't want damaged, you could buy a few less-than-minty ponies until you think she's ready for the ones in your current collection. Maybe guidance like, "Let's wash our hands first to keep our ponies pretty and clean!" and "Let's be gentle as we brush their manes!" would be good.

     Perhaps the many you ponies you'd prefer not to display right now could go on "vacation" to storage and come back for occasional visits 

     Have fun with your little girl!! It's so great that you have her to share your  love of ponies with! 

[Taffeta]

I think that there are ponies I could let a kid play with and ones I could not.

When my sister and I were little, we were quite good with them on the whole. The only bad thing Naynie did to one of my ponies was write her name on the hooves because she confused it with hers (and it has since worn off). And that was when she was about four and couldn't even write very well...so I think kids can treat things nicely. None of ours ever got cut hair or chewed on or anything like that and Naynie was around them from when she was born, pretty much and I always trusted her with them, even taking my ponies to her friend's house (she's about 6 years younger than I am).

Oh, she did drop one of them down the toilet at her friend's house, but the pony survived, the loo was clean at the time (a very fastidious Japanese family's house, thankfully) and the pony got disinfected so all ended happily...and the pony didn't even lose her curls.

Ahem. As I was saying...

I think teaching the kid to take care of the toys as well as play with them is maybe important with something like MLP. I don't agree that G1 should never be played with - that was their raison d'etre and they should still be loved by children even if they are loved by adults, too - but if it's super rare or super mint, it probably needs to stay out of reach.

[ladybastilla]

It ultimately boils down to whether someone views ponies as toys, as collectibles, or as both. And if it's as both, in what order. I think another thing to consider is what you think the worst your child would / could do to them, and to honestly consider how upset you would be if that worst thing happened. If it would be really upsetting for you, then leave them out of reach. Why court misery?

I also agree with those who have asked whether MLP is truly your child's passion or not. You know your child / niece / nephew / etc. better than anyone on a forum. Any type of negative or indifferent behavior toward the ponies could stem from this. Another thing to consider is the idea of "Does s/he love the ponies as much as I do?"... I don't necessarily think children love more or less than adults, but they love in very different context. Especially if we are talking about their love for toys from your childhood? Do you love their toys? Just a thought. I enjoy several modern toylines, but I'd be the first to admit that I don't feel the same about them as the toys I owned--or wanted--in my own youth.

It can be a delicate line. I was taught to take good care of my toys from a very early age because I 'worked' (visited with people...) in my grandfather's antique shop from a very young age. I reflected what I learned about gently handling antiques onto my own possessions. But even with that gentility, there were things that were mine and things that were grandpa's or my fathers, etc. And some of those were, for instance, Barbie dolls that were -never- to leave their box.

[Saja]

I go thru those fases some times I just pack them away, till the fase of love comes back

[LadyMoondancer]

I think another thing to consider is what you think the worst your child would / could do to them, and to honestly consider how upset you would be if that worst thing happened. If it would be really upsetting for you, then leave them out of reach. Why court misery?

I think this is a great point. Because even kids who are "respectful with their toys" most of the time will have their moments.   I was generally very gentle with my toys, especially my ponies.  I cried when SS Angel lost her original curl after my sister braided her hair and refused to let my mom write my name on the underside of my ponies' hooves.  Pen on my ponies??  NOOOO!

But I also

- Cut holes in doll pants and undies so my Pound Puppies could wear them.  (For the tail.)

- Decided my blond Red Riding Hood Doll would be more interesting with colorful streaks of eyeshadow in her hair.  (It never washed out.)

- Painted a bunch of plastic animal figures black to recreate that scene in "Hundred and One Dalmatians" where the dogs roll in soot.

These all seemed like perfectly reasonable things to do at the time, and I didn't understand at all why my mom was upset about her old doll clothes having tail holes in it.  It wasn't ruined, it was IMPROVED because now Pound Puppies could wear it!

It's funny how kids think.

[lovesbabysquirmy]

Destruction of said toys doesn't bother me.  My childhood ponies have hair cuts, pen marks, names on hooves, chewed hooves/ears/horns/wings... I was pretty creative with them!

Here is a hoof sample:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


What bugs me is that they will not be cherished, special toys the same way mine were.  I only had ONE pony when I was her age.  ONE.  JUST ONE.  Of course I realize things have changed a lot in 30 years but I suppose I have to let go of how I was raised and embrace how I am raising her.  After all, she also has 200x more books than I do, as well as the entertainment hub that is the Internet.

This was her pony collection in summer 2013:
visitors can't see pics , please register or login


She has well over 30 ponies now... so I am giving her my G3 castle this morning and if the ponies have a place to live, then maybe I can think about giving them new "neigh"-bours!  HAHA !