While I'm not a family man myself, I'm wondering what the children of older fans here think of their Transformers collection. Are they indifferent to your hobby and give you your personal space, or are they fascinated with your smogasbord of toys and want to play with it themselves? How do you cope with that when you're so protective about your collection? Do you barricade the entrance to your happy place and forbid your children from entering under pain of death? Do you hand them a Slumblebee to share your hobby and distract them from the more expensive figures? Or do you leave everything alone and hope that one of your toddlers doesn't crawl into the livingroom with a half-chewed Cerebros stuck in his mouth?

 

My daughter is 8 and understands that the toys on display are Daddy's toys. She us allowed to take one down and transform it back and forth, even play around with them a bit - but she understands they're not really "play" toys. She has some TFs of her own if she must simulate all out warfare  

I think she understands the need to take care of them because when her friends come over, SHE gives the warning not to touch instead of me!

 

That's what Gravity Bots and Fast action Battlers are for. (Well, not the missile ones.)

 

My older son and I kind of started on TFs together so we always shared our toys (except for my BTs, paint scratches are too much of a worry). I don't have very expensive stuff anyway.

Sadly, my son seems to have grown out of TFs  

 

i let my daughter play with larger toys. she can't throw it around as much. when she's older i'll be able to play with her with any of my toys. actually, i can't wait to really play with action figures and even dolls with her. maybe do some stop animation. it would be so awesome.

my wife's dog on the other hand, i want to trade. her cocker spaniel is pure bred. 3 years old. looking for 10 RTS wreck-gars and the dog is yours.

 

Maybe you should get a paternity test.  

 

how old is he?  

 

Same here... My son recently started collecting Gundams... As for the little ones that come over... All I have to say is duck tape works wonders...

 

▲   nice

 

nice. lol!

 

If he had a really good time playing with TFs, he'll be back sooner or later.

 

My daughter is only 3, but she loves playing with my toys. She only really cares for their vehicle modes though. I try to give her the cheap ones to crash into each other (off-screen movie cars) and I even gave her Cybertron Landmine, ROTF Dead End an a few others.

She especially loves Might Gaine though.   I don't have a problem with her playing with it as long as she doesn't smash Alternity Convoy into it! D:

 

@Cal: LAMO.  
While Im not against the idea of my future spawn(s) ahem- playing with my possibly large and still growing collection in the future, IMHO 'junker TF's' in the toy boxes work wonders for kids age 15 and below.  

 

I don't have too much of a problem with my six year old son and my toys, especially now since my complete collection is packed up while my family and I are on a two year rental home journey for my wife's job. Before I packed it all up though, he always respected the times that I let him come into my toy room and look around. I always left the room locked when I wasn't around (helps keep the wifey from being nosey about new purchases) to keep dust and children out. When I did let him or any of my younger family members come in to look around, I always had them obey one rule- put your hands in your pockets. It helped to keep the kiddos from getting excited and reaching out too quickly thus avoiding any accidents.

As for his own toys, he actually gravitated towards Transformers on his own thanks to the movies. Having him be a Transformers fan also helps me with the problem of being able to "play with" Transformers that intrigue me from lines that I do not collect (such as the movie line toys). If I see one that I think looks cool but it is a movie toy, I just get it for him instead. That way I can play with it too.

He is slowly starting to move towards video games, but still has at least 2 or 3 good battles in his room each week. Just the other day, ROTF Devastator had a battle with his Star Wars BMF AT-AT driven by the ESB Bounty Hunters. It was quite the sight to see Devastator standing on top of the AT-AT. Good times.

 

Exactly. Also RPM's and Attacktix. My son is almost 3 now and knows these are daddy's toys. I have them all locked up in my cases. If he wants to play with some I'll take them out and let him. But there are some I tell him are too delicate. WST's are ones that I don't let him play with at all.

 

I share my hobby with my 3 year old son.

He gets some of his own (FAB, legends) and knows which ones are daddy's.

 

My son could care less about my Transformers.In fact,a chunk of my collection actually came from him.He accumulated a bunch as gifts,and then one day,just decided to give them all to me because he didn't want them anymore.

 

You bring up an interesting point. Isn't anyone worried that some of their Transformers might constitute a choking hazard for children?

You have the coolest son ever. Can I keep him?