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I'm pleased you said that, because we also have a mixture, but most of the sets that were built were broken up and are now in communal boxes. This seems pretty unusual compared to most parents, I guess it's mostly because the parents don't want things to get mixed up. In theory we could rebuild according to the instructions, but in reality it's never going to happen as it would take so long to find all the pieces. Almost every day my kids (Boy 6, Girl, 8) do free play with the mixed lego, sometimes for hours. I'm really pleased with it, as it makes a good break from Youtube etc.

I wish my kids were more into free play. When their sets inevitably get broken and end up in the communal box, that's usually the last time they play with it. I should stop buying them more sets, but as an avid collector myself I enjoy getting sets as much for my own enjoyment.

For them I think Minecraft scratches much that creative itch that Lego used to bring me.

Bingo. I think this comment nails it. Minecraft is the digital lego for alot of kids these days. My youngest daughter is 9 with autism, and she is always talking about minecraft. She just absolutely loves it to death.

Necessity is the mother of invention. I played with legos a lot to try and build a toy I didn't get. When I didn't get a Megazord action figure one year for Christmas, I tried the best I could to build something like it out of legos.

This is absolutely the correct way Lego intends you to play. They even make the boxes flimsy and cheap on purpose to not encourage saving them. There are some Lego employees on TikTok that speak of their training and "secrets" if interested. Not a source of truth, but interesting none the less.

Personally, I enjoy the modern Lego in that there is parental choice. As a company, they cater to all audiences without a strong opinion either way. This is the way.

Yes, I think a proper Lego setup for young children requires the parents to set up the right environment. We devote quite a bit of space to Lego so that it’s always on hand and I’m a bit fanatical about Lego organisation. That helps both when starting a free build and also finding the pieces for an official manual. Flip side is the classic pain of stepping on Lego!

> The classic sets still exist and how children play with Lego depends on their personality and what they have available (and how it is stored). Children are individuals and Lego allows a larger variety of play than most other toys on the market.

Yes. And also, many if not most kids combine approaches. Start by building based on manual, then they play with it and it gets gradually destroyed, then just use it is as material.

Have few favorite sets they keep, the rest gets destroyed and used as bricks when in mood.

most others are added to the common boxes, which are sorted by rough shape based on what we’ve seen stimulates free building.

I inherited a bunch of legos from older cousins when I was a kid (and I've since donated them to a school). My parents did get me a tackle box to go along with them, and sorting/putting them away is as much part of the play/learning as building, I think. Just like you can't really go fishing if you can't find the right lure, you can't really build that spaceship if you don't know where the cone piece is.

I haven't really followed recent Lego developments, but I'm relieved to see the "classic" sets still exist - although it's understandable to not be aware of them, because all of the advertising goes into the branded sets, probably because the margin on them is much better (ok, they probably have to pay some license fees to Disney, Warner or whoever, but still...)

My childhood memory with Lego was the big box we had where all was mixed together. This ment lomg search firnthe "right" piece in the "right" color and the often resulted in finding some different piece and changing plans.

On the side I had precious models, which were not to touch.

> My kids have a mix of classic & branded sets and the play area is a mix of designed builds and improvised creations.

Amazing. My kid just wants to get the build over with so he can get back to gaming or youtube, where he watches other people gaming.

My kid is only 3, but I am already contemplating time boxing and auditing gaming and YouTube time. It seems significantly more difficult than it ought to be, thanks to all the brain hijacking dark patterns out there.

Do so, no question about it! Once most children disappear down a YouTube rabbit hole of unboxing or gaming they're lost. It's scary to see how addictive our modern passive entertainment is. In my experience, the best thing to do is start limiting from early on. My kids are still under 10 and it's 1 to 1:15 hours of gaming + same of TV on each weekend day, never on a school day. They are hardly aware that YouTube exists, they only watch it with us.

This takes up a lot of our time, as we're their entertainment, but the times that I let go and let them watch more typically come back and bite me as they haven't had enough time to play & be creative and that leads to tantrums and bad bedtimes. We use Google Family to control their tablets and it's the timer on there that stops them playing, not us, which feels fairer to them.