“Does everyone have ruined children’s books with torn out pages and ripped covers or are my children the only ones who do that?”

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My cousin recently posted a dilemma on social media. His kids were tearing their board books to pieces. Like, pages off the spine and colored layers off the cardboard underneath. They were ripping books until there was nothing recognizable left…. yikes!

Have your books ever suffered a similar fate? It’s a sad, sad day when you walk into a room and discover only the corpse of a beloved book. And it poses a dilemma: put the books on a higher shelf and limit your child’s free access to them (and thus limit their solo time for learning to love books) OR leave the books lower, within their reach, but risk their destruction? It’s a dilemma that has faced almost every parent of a toddler with children’s books in their home.

The good news is that there’s another option. While there WILL be slip ups, you CAN teach even a young toddler to be gentle and kind to their books while simultaneously meeting their need for exploring the ripping and pulling of paper that they enjoy.

Let’s look into both why children enjoy destroying books so much as well as what you can do about it.

Why do children gravitate towards ripping books and tearing pages?

First and foremost, you should know that tearing pages in books is developmentally appropriate. We might not love this stage of development when it means our books get destroyed, but it is age appropriate and is actually helping children develop important fine motor skills needed for other life activities that we do want them to participate in, such as “handwriting and coloring, managing buttons and zippers, manipulating pegs and more” (Beck, 2021). (But again, just because book tearing is developmentally appropriate does not mean that we just have to let it happen without guiding our young one to better options or intervening to save a book. More on that later).

Toddlers learn a lot through touch

Children are naturally curious and they are also naturally tactilely-oriented. They learn through touch as much as anything else when they are older babies and/or younger toddlers. Think about all the banging and tugging they do with their toys at that age. Think of all the objects that go into their mouths (another avenue for tactile exploration). They also don’t know their strength yet or how much resistance an object will give before it breaks. They’re testing all of that out. And books often can’t handle that kind of experimentation.

It takes practice to learn how to turn pages

Additionally, it’s a learned skill to physically hold a book and turn pages. Young toddlers just haven’t learned this skill yet. They are still developing the necessary hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills necessary to successfully do so. As they make a valiant attempt to imitate you turning pages, it’s more likely than not that they will tear the page instead of turn it. Or, as mentioned above, they haven’t yet learned their strength so when they go to make the attempt, they pull too hard. Or, as they learn coordination, they might pull in a less-than-ideal angle. Children need practice to learn these skills…and there will be causalities to pages in the process. We’ll talk about it more below, but you can decrease the causalities by providing lots of practice with more sturdy books during the younger years.

Tearing paper provides amazing and unique sensory input

Finally, for this discussion anyway, as children explore and learn about their world, they unconsciously seek different kinds of sensory input. Children (and adults too) love to experience variety in their sensory experience of the world. Too much of the same thing can be under-stimulating for their brains and development. If they’ve been exploring a soft and furry plush toy for a while, they might gravitate towards something that’s hard and shiny next. Or something bumpy, or wet, or jingly. Their bodies and brains are ready for a new sensory experience.

Tearing and ripping books provides toddlers with a unique option for sensory input. They get to hear the sound of ripping paper and feel the resistance and then the give of the paper. It’s satisfying to them on so many sensory levels.

What can you do to help protect your children’s books from being destroyed?

Manage expectations-some books will be lost along the way

• It will take your child a while to learn how to be gentle and that’s ok. Once you realize this, you’ll be better able to embrace the process without undue frustrations. It’s also still ok to mourn the damage done to a favorite book. Both these things can be true at the same time.
• Books aren’t exactly the most sturdy things in the best of instances and the quick, cheap, mass-produced children’s’ books aren’t at the top of the list of well-made items. Many of our books are tapped together and/or otherwise looking sad not only from ill-use but also from much use. Our well-loved books are looking a bit shabby simply because most books aren’t built for the constant re-reading that toddlerhood’s repetition demands.
• You can minimize the hit to your wallet for buying new books by, again, managing expectations. Loose the image of pristine, heirloom books gracing the shelves of your nursery. Instead, embrace used and second-hand books and/or books you’ve cobbled back together. You can also visit your local library to fill out your selection without needing to constantly go out and buy new books to replace the damaged ones.

Teach your children that books are our friends

• Teach your children that “books are our friends and we use gentle hands with them”. Then, with younger toddlers especially, physically take their hand in yours and help them gently touch the book while repeating that books are friends and we use gentle hands with them.
• Talk to your child about how to treat books (similar to the above): “Balls are for throwing and the floor is for standing on. Books are for reading…like this!”
• Explain that books break easily, that they need to be closed a specific way, and that paper tears. There aren’t that many other things in their play zone that are so easily destroyed and if they aren’t taught then they for sure will learn through lived experience, ie through torn pages, broken spines, and ripped off covers.
• Set boundaries such as “if I see you not being kind to the book then I need to take the book away for a little bit. Please show me how we gently use a book.”
• After reading, model carefully putting the book away “in its home.”

Encourage a love of books

• Read books with your children frequently so they learn to treasure them. They will gradually learn what we do do with books (read them carefully) instead of what we don’t do with books (throw them, step on them, tear them).
• Model reading on your own. Your children will see from your example how carefully you turn pages, how to close the book with the binding and covers the correct orientation, and how to place it gently on a table or shelf when finished reading. Watching you read will also foster a greater desire in them to read on their own and to develop a life-long love of reading. Win-win!

Help children get their sensory input and developmental milestones met in other ways

• Let them hold something else while reading that they can safely manipulate such as a toy or stuffed animal. This can minimize the likelihood that they will reach out, grab a page and impulsively tear it.
• Provide books that give different sensory input than only paper does so that tearing isn’t their first thought. Examples might be textured/crinkly cloth books or board books with touch and feel elements to them.
• If your child’s need for tearing paper is met in a more appropriate manner, they will be less likely to attack books in an effort to meet that need. The OT Toolbox has great ideas on how to meet a toddler’s sensory need to tear paper including suggestions for different weights and textures of paper to try; different paper sources such as junk mail; and different activities that can be done with torn paper such as paper art or shapes practice.

Provide independent access to only the most sturdy books first

• There is no need to provide your child with unsupervised access to all your children’s books right from the get-go. (There’s not even a need to read to your child from all your children’s books right away if they frequently reach out and grab thin paper pages while reading). When your kids on in this stage of development, it’s completely fine to curate which books they have access to for solo reading.
• Some good options for stocking the lower shelves of your bookshelf include board books (without pop-out or some lift-the-flap features) and cloth books. (There’s even a brand of books called “indestructible books” that I’ve heard good things about but haven’t personally tested. Let me know if you have experience with them and what you think!)
• Save the regular paper-paged picture books for reading together (with their hands dutifully distracted with other objects) or until your child has demonstrated that they are consistently kind to their books.

And remember: teaching children to be gentle to anything and anyone is a long process. Helping them to be gentle to books, specifically, isn’t any different. So, be prepared for bumps on the road, even if you do all of these suggestions to a T.

Deep breath. You’re not alone. This is a road for every parent to trend as they introduce books into their child’s world. You got this!

Xoxo,

Briana

Hello! I’m Briana!