A couple of days ago I read a tweet about LEGO helping out a 7 year old boy. Great PR on LEGO's part but after reading through the full story I became rather annoyed.
If you haven't seen the letter from Luka to LEGO (where have you been as it's been everywhere!)
In a nutshell, Luka saved up his Christmas money to buy a Ninjago set which included a Jay ZX character. Luka then lost his Jay ZX on a shopping trip, despite his father telling him to leave it at home. Luka's Dad then told him to contact LEGO to see if they would replace it. Which they did.
Credit must go to Richard from Lego Consumer Services for stating, more than once, in his reply to Luka that Dad was right but I do have a problem with what his Dad told him to do and the eventual outcome.
What is this teaching Luka? Ignore your parents and lose your prized toy but don't worry son because if you write to the toy company they'll replace it AND send you something extra as reward for your disobedience. You'll also have your 15 minutes of fame in national media.
In my opinion that's just so very wrong.
My son recently bought an expensive remote control car with his Christmas and birthday money. Within 24 hours of buying it he'd ignored our comments about being careful and had snapped the aerial in two. Should I get him to contact Modelzone to replace it? No, he'll be buying a replacement himself out of his own money and has hopefully learned to be more careful in future.
What's your opinion? Would you actively encourage your child to do what Luka did or is it 'tough luck' when your child has ignored you and lost/broken something?
I totally agree with you. I think it is out of order actually. In a way the kid is being taught not to own up to his own responsabilities but rather to place it on somebody else's shoulders. The lesson he gets is "actually don't worry about looking after your stuff you can always get a new one just by asking for it!"
ReplyDeleteI agree that children should be taught if they lose or break something then they should replace it. However if it breaks due to a design fault then the company should replace it. It was nice of Lego though to do that. x
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