How do you involve your kids/family?

[trstnkn]

I've been thinking about this as I have a 6, 4 and 2 year old.  After seeing kingfishe2's post on Customer Mapping (which was a great idea, btw), I thought I would start a topic on how you involve your kids.

Good tasks for young kids - sorting by color (my 4-year old is crazy good at this and likes it), using the visual dictionaries to put mini figures together correctly (my 6-year old has mini figures memorized like an encyclopedia), sorting built pieces by manuals (my 6-year old can take manuals and place them out and find partially built pieces to match the set), building to completion (my 6-year old is extremely accurate, so I will often watch him as I build alongside), removing any mega bloks

At first, when we would build a large bulk lot, I would let my oldest keep 1 of the sets as long as he behaved and helped.  But he quickly maxed out on how many sets he can have, so now I let him accumulate a small amount of cash per task.  To my kids, $1-2 is still a lot of money as they are kindergarten and younger.  So far they just save the money, but many times don't really care about it.  We take 1-2 trips annually as a family, so we usually chalk up our efforts to our trips.  I do often pass them some neat specialty pieces for their random bins that seems to be the best 'payment/reward' so far.

The only issue I run into is my son wanting to rip open any set that is NIB that I want to hang onto for awhile.   I am very cognizant of them being spoiled, so I like the fact that they don't seem to want to hang on to much.  My 6-year old just has an insatiable urge to build and then move on.  

Curious how others incorporate their kids into their hobby/reselling and would appreciate any tips for those of us starting out.

Thank you in advance.

[Sfcommando14]

My four year old just likes playing with the Legos and building, but she's an excellent scout. When we hit a clearance aisle I tell her to "put her Lego eyes on" since she has a different perspective. She's very good at finding sets on lower shelves that I might miss because they're in the back. Those are some very good ideas that I may put into practice. Thanks for sharing.

[Huskers1236]

My son (and daughter to a lesser extent) help do sorting.  Not that I wouldn't let them grab some anyway, but I reward their help with some figures and pieces that they think are cool to put in the bins.  My daughter gets the girl colors and she loves that because she's a princess through and through.  My son is starting to do his own builds so he always has in the back of his head parts that might be useful and throws them in the bins.  He then in turn uses his new figures to trade and get the ones he really wants from friends.  I don't let him trade figures that are part of sets, but the rest are fair game.  He has a pretty good grasp on the value of different figures as he trolls Bricklink all the time creating his want list.

[mfortunek]

42 minutes ago, Huskers1236 said:

My son (and daughter to a lesser extent) help do sorting.  Not that I wouldn't let them grab some anyway, but I reward their help with some figures and pieces that they think are cool to put in the bins.  My daughter gets the girl colors and she loves that because she's a princess through and through.  My son is starting to do his own builds so he always has in the back of his head parts that might be useful and throws them in the bins.  He then in turn uses his new figures to trade and get the ones he really wants from friends.  I don't let him trade figures that are part of sets, but the rest are fair game.  He has a pretty good grasp on the value of different figures as he trolls Bricklink all the time creating his want list.

@Huskers1236 My wife and six year-old son built this with me. It was a real family project. I already posted it to the MOC thread (so you can read more about the genesis of it there if you're interested) but your avatar warrants a direct hit coming at you. Bear Down.