Are in-wall speakers worth considering?

I recently congratulated my aunt and uncle on having the only children to have not damaged my speaker cones....
Five minutes later while listening to the Graceland album with my uncle his son ran to the front of the room and distorted the left speaker driver with his fist!

I am becoming quite skilled at quick driver replacements. Often times the damage isn't observed until after the guests depart the house - although I've watched the parents of some kids observe the damage firsthand as if nothing abnormal had happened. At this point I am unsure which is less painful to observe. At least with the first hand atrocity I have the option of pointing out the unacceptable behavior.

I hate having to either akwardly inform guests of the value of my system in order to have it respected or the second option of replacing components on a regular basis. I think the first option is brought on by the fact that "expensive" to most of the public is $300 at Best Buy.

If I can train my cat and dog to respect my equipment (and the personal space of my guests), why can't my guests prevent violent outbursts from their kids? My dog even knows not to enter the room with my equipment. If I acted as recklessly as these kids do, I probably would have received a beat down (perhaps overstating it a bit)!

Apology - I didn't realize how off topic my rant was. After the "when kids go bad" I totally forgot that we started with a discussion about in-wall speakers. What if we put the speakers out in the room and built enclosures for the kids in the wall!?

Cyto and Wade these are nightmare stories and I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight. I've been lucky only because my brothers and sisters know how fanatical I am about my stuff and I know they've talked to their children. I was not a model kid when young, but when I went to other peoples houses I knew not to touch anything! Its totally changed today. I'm serious, If I had kids that damaged something at a friends house I'd be down on my knees asking forgiveness while holding out an open check book. Sadly, times have changed. P.S. Wade, I too have a cat- first time she went near the audio gear, I said NO!- not one problem since! Cats have respect.

Well, this generated an interesting dialog! As they say: "I used to be a great parent until I had kids." As the father of twin 6-year-olds, my view is that it's unreasonable to expect kids to live like adults. Yeah, I suppose you could discipline children like you discipline dogs, but you'd be depriving them of a childhood. Our family room will be a kids room, so I won't be asking the kids to watch out for speakers, cables and turntables. They do like music, though, of all kinds.

I'm going to check out some good in-walls, like the Niles, for the family room. But I'll keep my B&W's in a room set aside for adults.

As for you single guys, you shouldn't expect visitors with kids to be able to have a good time in your listening room. Either the parents have to keep their attention 100% focused on the kids all the time (which destroys the social visit) or the kids will destroy your stereo. I'f you're going to invite kids to your house, entertatin them in some other room.

--DZ

For some perspective here - I'm 22, love kids, and haven't asked for or accepted any compensation yet for stereo damage. None of the agitation is directed toward the kids and most of the irritation comes from the fact that these incidents are generally easily preventable. In fairness, I am sure that many of the parents lack a comprehension for what these incidents actually cost in dollars.

I am curious as to how others feel or react toward this kind of "ground damage".