As a collector myself, I’ve tried to interest my kids in collecting. When my son was three he picked out a little turtle figurine at a shop while we were on vacation. It was adorable, and I thought maybe he could start a turtle collection. So we picked up a few more turtles on a few more trips, but it quickly became clear that he couldn’t care less about turtle figurines. I tried the same thing with cats for my daughter, but no dice. Then I looked at their Thomas the Tank Engine set, which numbers over 40 trains, thanks to a set of over-indulgent grandparents, and realized they already had a collection. In fact, at any given moment they could tell you the next two trains they were planning to get.

For a while we collected things that they found on our daily walks in the woods behind our house and displayed them on a pretty plate, but that kind of died off. These days my six-year-old is getting into Hotwheels cars, which are much cheaper than the trains, thank goodness.

So I’ve learned that trying to direct a kid into a particular area of collecting doesn’t necessarily work - they’ll wind up collecting what they like, so it’s a better idea to keep an eye on their interests and encourage them. I’m also discovering that what they’re interested in collecting can change from year to year, especially when they’re still really little like mine are. I can’t wait to see what’s coming next!

The Smithsonian Institute has a nice site for kids who are interested in collecting.

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This entry was posted on Friday, January 26th, 2007 at 11:28 am and is filed under collecting fyi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.