Kids and Collecting

Kids can acquire -- stuff to play with and soon to be discarded -- or they can collect. And as a collector it just makes me smile when they take an interest and develop a collecting passion.

My five year old grandson knows all about collecting -- he already "has to have the whole set" when it comes to toys or characters. So, we have all the Disney Cars, all the Shrek toys from McDonalds and every Veggie Tale character that was made, etc. The hardest part is when he sees an old movie and doesn't understand that characters were not always made for every movie, unlike today when licensing is such a big business. His most interesting collection is wind-up toys from Tomy. Even at five years old, he only wants the Tomy brand toys and he is convinced there is a Tomy museum in Japan that we should visit like in the movie Where the Toys Are. And one of his favorite game is playing eBay, we put a few of his toys in a box and he loves to "open it up" and see what he got from eBay. No, I'm not kidding, I certainly couldn't make that up!

You just might discover that your kids and grandkids can be drawn to all sorts of items, not necessarily just toys, comics and characters. Like an adult, it's not uncommon for a kid to be interested across the board and collect about anything, like Andy's keys or noted Christmas designer Larry Fraga who started collecting glass ornaments when he was seven years old! It doesn't matter what it is -- if they love it and it's not harmful (or too costly), let them make their own choices.

• Helping Your Youngsters Start a Collection