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System protection from grandkids !

Yeah, I think we've all met kids like him. Dad is not around and mother is a fechin idiot! They're going to pay for it in the long run. I've seen it. Once they get to their teens you've in big trouble and it's too late to fix.

Personally, I wouldn't have the kid in the house. I'm not joking. I would say to the mother that it's up to her how she brings up her kids but I've worked hard for the things I have and I'm not going to stand back and watch a spoiled, ill-disciplined child destroy them. I remember we befriended a Nigerian family who had three young boys, the youngest was a baby but the two older boys were a bomb scare. They were in our house once, that was it. Never again.

I've been extremely blunt with people often. It''s better that way. You're not trying to pretend you're ok with things you're not ok with, they know exactly where you stand. It's just better to be honest even if it does cause discord at the time. Which it does. Honesty is just better in the long run and might help the situation.
I try to avoid it and my sister sent her packing a couple of weeks ago… Dad (my brother) is very much on the scene, but he does have to travel for work, so he can be away days at a time, and no kind of boundaries are enforced whilst he’s away. The little one will literally fight you if you try and stop him though. When I took the remote from him the other day, he really held tight onto it with the one hand whilst hitting out with the other, kind of comical really, but it won’t be if that behaviour continues as he grows up.

When they come round, I don’t let anyone in the front room at all, that’s were my main system is along with my LP12 and my music collection, oled tv etc. It’s pretty much a certainty that some damage would be done.

You’ve mentioned that family before in a similar thread. It’s tougher when it’s family, although I will always voice my concerns. If people think I’m mean when I take a remote, my car keys, phone etc off their child, then so be it… they’d be even less happy when I handed them the bill for a new remote key fob because their child has drowned it in their saliva and killed it, or smashed a phone screen.

One mishap that happened a couple of years ago here, I’d got my niece and two nephews whilst my sister was at work during the summer holidays, we were in the garden and the kids were playing in the hot tub, the youngest needed the toilet so his sister took him whilst into the house whilst I supervised the middle one in the tub… she then went to the toilet and left him in the hallway… in the time she’d left him, he’d made his way into the front room (don’t ask how, I’d left the door shut and the handle was out of his reach), he’d managed to take the cantilever off my Rega Apheta. Only found out later when I walked in the room and found the arm resting on the platter.

A good few years before that, my friend’s children crushed both ceramic tweeter domes on my Linn Keilidhs, again, it could’ve only happened whilst I was out of the room. They kept going for them and I kept moving them (they were like a team, one going for a speaker each), I made a drink and told my friend to keep the kids away from the speakers/hifi… I only realised later when I came to play some music that they’d completely destroyed both tweeters.
 
The only damage I had was a poked in Kan tweeter and that was not a small child but a visiting fifteen year old. Didn't know he'd done it until days later when I was listening to music and realized it was out. Then remembered him over at the speaker looking sheepish when he saw me.

My eldest son had his own system, including a turntable, when he was four. I would say that he never damaged it but he did put a crease in a paper speaker cone when he pulled out he headphone jack while the volume was turned up!
My daughter had a system of her own from a young age, she inherited the Keilidhs after I put a pair of Ninkas in my second system (didn’t want to sell them for the pittance they were selling for and needed somewhere to put them), I paired them with a Classik Movie, that was when she was about six years old or so… she is still using those Keilidhs now, albeit with better electronics and louder/worse music… she’s looked after them though.
 
My grandson is under 2 and he is very gentle with my guitars as my wife says be gentle they are grandad's and he is. My playing of "Wheels on the Bus" is now masterful.

He hasn't discovered what havoc he can wreak on my turntable yet but has taken a great interest in the shiny speakers in my KEF LS50's in the TV room, I've had to stop him a couple of times although my nought to 60 from the couch isn't what it used to be.

Keeping an eye on them all the time is a lot harder than it sounds.
 
Dad is very much on the scene, but he does have to travel for work, so he can be away days at a time, and no kind of boundaries are enforced whilst he’s away. The little one will literally fight you if you try and stop him though.

I think it's worth making an issue of it because they are family and you'll be seeing them for years. And they live close enough that you see them often. They are probably well aware of the problem but are in denial or something. Fine, it's their life but if I were you I'd be having a sit-down talk about it. Say the current situation is unacceptable and something has to change. Either the child is taught to behave like a human being or they just can't bring him over. And you won't baby-sit him or take him out. It doesn't go down well but I've yet to regret being straight with someone.

One of my nephew's was a brat when he was small. I did tell his dad about the things he'd done but I didn't make a big thing of it because we only see them a couple of times a year. His dad just made exudes for him and insisted he was a good boy. The kid is in his late teens now and he's fine. A polite, gracious young man. It's a complicated thing and you just need to try to figure out what the best thing to do is in your exact situation.
 
Keeping an eye on them all the time is a lot harder than it sounds.

It's impossible. That's why they need to be taught, so they moderate their own behavior. The Nigerian family, the parents paid zero notice to what the kids were doing, couldn't care less. They paid for it big time as the eldest boy was a handful when he was in his teens. By this time his father couldn't ignore it any more but his son was big enough to hit him back! There was a total breakdown of the relationship with the son hating his dad and moving out as soon as he could.
 
We have a through lounge and fitted a child gate in the archway between the two rooms to keep the Cat, Dog & little ones out. We did suffer some minor damage in the past; the closest escape I had was when I went to play a record one day, only to find the Aro floating over the platter with no visible means of support! On investigation, I found the the arm wand had become entangled with the bias weight support and this had saved the cartridge! This was my son when he was a toddler, but it's the only issue we ever had with our kids. We had a treble unit pushed in and the phase plug on one of the SBLs knocked off by visiting toddlers, but in all, we didn't do too bad and in any case, the latter incident with the SBLs gave me a suitable excuse to get mkII drivers fitted!
 
Ive never had a problem with my girls touching the music setup taught from an early age, even my two Golden Retrievers know not to go near.
 
Thanks guys you have been a great help as always !
We are both really looking forward to tomorrow when they arrive
The tent is up at the far end of the garden near the garage which is handy as we can plug the 100 volt electric fence in
We have installed locks on all the doors and hidden the keys
About mid morning we will start burning them and we have been practicing speaking in a very stern voice so they know we mean it ! and then after lunch we will begin the medical experiments
Then at 4:30 when they go I will enter the lounge and sit and listen to my music confident everything is safe
Thank goodness for HiFi eh !!
:eek:;);)
 
Thanks guys you have been a great help as always !
We are both really looking forward to tomorrow when they arrive
The tent is up at the far end of the garden near the garage which is handy as we can plug the 100 volt electric fence in
We have installed locks on all the doors and hidden the keys
About mid morning we will start burning them and we have been practicing speaking in a very stern voice so they know we mean it ! and then after lunch we will begin the medical experiments
Then at 4:30 when they go I will enter the lounge and sit and listen to my music confident everything is safe
Thank goodness for HiFi eh !!
:eek:;);)
To be fair, it was easy with my own daughter, from the moment she started exploring, I’d just mover her away from stuff she shouldn’t be touching, and it never became an issue. I did similar with my sister’s children, but then so did she, and with the exception of one mishap, they’ve been golden and they respect my home, I regularly have them to stay and I don’t have to move anything… my brother’s kids are like a hurricane, and the youngest is by far the worst, but it’s a disciplined issue. If they know boundaries already, it’s easy to teach new ones in a new environment… if they know no boundaries at all, then good luck!
 
Kids have never really gone in my room but eldest did once listen to Arctic Monkeys at ear splitting levels once; I’d showed him how to work the CD player & no harm was done.
 
Nature vs nurture...
Socialisation - children need to learn at an early age that the world does not revolve around them. Failure to master this basic accomplishment results in sociopathy, which should be punished.

I dislike most children, in case you couldn't tell...
 
A quick cheap way to protect the speaker cones and foam grilles, is to get suitably sized cardboard boxes and put them over the speakers. You might want to cover the boxes in some old wallpaper to help aesthetics. Ensure the stands can't be knocked over. I used to push the coffee table upto the racks, it might help to hide the rack with a suitable blanket first.
 
Good Evening All,

I haven't seen an electric cattle prod mentioned once so far................................:rolleyes:

Regards

Richard
 


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