Please Don't Break Daddy's Toys: How to keep your toddler from destroying your favorite gadgets.

So I've come to the realization that sometimes, no matter how hard you try, your toddler will get a hold of some valuable equipment and you will feel a cold shudder down your spine as you watch it dangle on the edge of destruction. It may be a gaming controller, it may be a programmable remote, or an iPad, or an Android phone or any number of Xbox 360 games, PS3 discs or Blu-rays. It doesn't matter what measures you take, rest assured someday you'll find yourself torn between your love for your child, and the urge to fly across the room roaring "Drop that right now!", or as my toddler would say, "MINE!"

I'll admit my setup isn't really great for protecting my stuff; Particularly my game consoles. It consists of some inexpensive Ikea home theater cabinetry that really only puts the consoles out of reach of anyone under twenty inches in height. The gnome population of our house has been thwarted quite well, but the toddler is undeterred. This coupled with the fact that the slightest touch will turn on or eject a disc from my PS3 or my 360 Slim means I'm constantly on guard and I'm really only counting the days until a peanut butter and jelly sandwich makes its way into a disc tray.

So far so good however, my daughter has interacted with my gadgets a minimal amount of time resulting in (knock on wood) zero damage.  I attribute this to my wife and I being very vigilant teaching my daughter, soon to be two years old, about what's daddy's, what's mommy's, what's hers, and even what's the dogs. Amazingly, this seems to have affected the dog too, as he's only really chewed his own toys and thankfully left my daughter's toys alone for the most part.

Now, I will state, for the record, I'm not a child psychologist, or a child care expert, or even an awesome parent; I am an ordinary dad, and probably even a little more uptight about people touching my crap than most parents should be. Success can be a fickle thing, but so far my (up to this point) winning strategy has been:

• Remember if my toddler breaks something important of mine, it's not the toddler's fault: It's either my fault, or it was an accident. There are rare cases where a toddler will intentionally break something, but those cases are either a parenting opportunity or the result of bad parenting IMHO.
• I keep things that are easily broken locked away if at all possible.
• When my toddler does grab some gadget of value to me I never, ever, freak out at her.
• Explain what it is the toddler is holding and why it's daddy's and we need to be gentle with it. (Gentle is a really frequently used word here at our house).
• Explain some stuff about the gadget and how it works to satisfy my daughter's curiosity, maybe even include a demonstration.
• I try to deflect my daughter's attention to something more interesting. A favorite toy or a task.
• My daughter in particular loves to help out. I often ask her to help me put my controllers and games away when she finds them, and in recent history I've even caught her putting them away before I even know she has them.

Despite our best efforts, our valuables as a whole are not without casualties. My wife has had her glasses broken by our well-intentioned little girl who was simply trying to help her "put them on, mommy". Tears have definitely been pulled out of my wife has she has watched my daughter twist the delicate arms off of her glasses. Generally, we try to take this opportunity to teach our child again why being "gentle" with other people's things is important, and how we should apologize if we accidentally break something that belongs to someone else. We've tried "never touch mommy's glasses", but that hasn't worked.

So, while it's impossible to keep your kid completely away from your precious loot; I think there are plenty of good ways to turn that situation into a more productive learning experience.

I can only hope my experience with our second child, my son, born just last week, will be as good as it's been with our first. At least as far as damage to my belongings go.  I do remember wrapping my dad's Buick around a sturdy oak when I was 16, though, so I figure I've got some payback in the works, but like I said: So far so good.