LET YOUR KID TAKE SOMETHING APART

LOOKING FOR THINGS TO TAKE APART.

Pine Tree Post | Educatin'

There is a crazy theory going around the Place Under The Pine, that letting the children rip things apart is a good idea. It's like the free range kid movement, but, with real tools! Just let them kids do what they want! The experts keep saying 'what better way to learn how things work than take them apart'...putting them back together is optional, especially with electronics.
This theory sounds like it could be both dangerous and destructive!
Saturday afternoon was quiet. The tinny sounds of an old, beat up, portable radio and the squeaking of screws being unscrewed from an out of commission DVD player were the only sounds that could be heard. An unsupervised six year old was in the process of dismantling every component of the DVD player. Occasionally his father would come in and answer a few general questions (he had watched a youtube video on what's inside a DVD player) and then leave the little guy to his own devices. Yes, he did pinch his fingers a few times and probably almost sliced his hand with the dangerous screwdrivers, but, after every single screw had been removed, after every nubby thing had been popped out, after the motherboard thing was emptied...the little guy still wanted more!
He wanted to find more things to take apart. Wanted to find more gears, like the one inside the DVD player that pushes the DVD out. He wanted to find more optical lenses (which he kept to show his friends at school). He had turned into a boy with a passion - for destroying things? Only time will tell if this idea set the stage for a future handyman, or a future full of buying new DVD players.

You challenge, if you choose to accept it, is to take this DVD player right down to the basic parts.

The dolls loaned their doll sized screwdriver for the tiny-tiny screws.

1 hour later - mission complete