Child Damage Mitigation

As a former Substitute Teacher in my kids school district, being a father of two (now 8 & 11), years of experience being around kids, also having been in the Audio Video Industry since 1992 and having all kinds of equipment around the house, my best parenting advice is don’t do anything - other than monitor them as much as you can as they’re growing and are around your equipment - stop them when they get close or let them touch stuff, but tell them NO and after several times, they learn ( I’m not supposed to touch that).

Now if your equipment is in a high traffic area and you can’t be in that space enough to monitor what they do, then you may need to take some extra precautions, but I warn against gates and other obstacles/barriers because to them, it becomes a challenge as to how do they get past it.

We had four levels in our old house when the kids were born, so the steps weren’t a lot - maybe 10 or so going to each level. We never used gates and yes, both kids took a tumble once, but that was it. By the time they were three, they could fly up and down the steps and kids that would come over where the parents used gates in their homes, their kids, many older than ours 4 and 5, looked like they were just learning to walk for the first time trying to go up and down our steps as my kids would just fly past them.

Never did our kids ever go around the equipment or break things - I always stopped them myself and made it clear not to touch. I even had B&W Nautilus 804’s at the time and the tweeters looked like a microphone - major attraction as they got bigger, but I always had to watch other peoples kids way more than my own when we had visitors.  They never touched those tweeters or any part of the speakers.  

Lastly, we had people over for a gathering and we always had all kinds of breakables laying around the house - glass orbs and decorative stuff - and everyone that came over would always ask why we never put them away or how they never got broken. It’s because we wanted our kids to be able to be around and exposed to those things so they wouldn’t get broken. It’s when you work so hard to prevent something from happening, that’s usually when it does.

That’s my best parenting advice.

Thanks!

Keep the kid tied up in the back yard until they are 16.

Close off the room or let the kid trash your system. 

cd318;    " Short sharp shock . . . . "
Nice audiophile quote.  Pulled that one out of the woodwork from say, 1973.  Good one there.  :')
" I didn't really know I was drunk at the time."

I agree with the other parents in this thread. It's easy to tell who they are! 1) Congrats! Becoming a parent is a really wonderful phase of life.

2) From now on your kid will always be the most important thing in your life, period. More important than your gear for sure, and even more important than your wife. She'll eventually agree with that too if she doesn't already. 

3) Personally, I went to replace my B&W 802M on SoundAnchor stands with their bottom woofer dust caps at eye-level with something smaller (805M + sub so I can have a respectable-if-older surround system in future) on weighted stands. By the time I got around to filling the stands, my son had learned not to touch the 802s. So they still sit where they started out.

4) I did install a large piece of Plexiglas-type material in a wood frame across the front of my system. That's been a huge help to keep his little hands out. Now he can reach the top of it but still leaves it alone... for now.

5) As the other parents here have pointed out, start thinking about how to secure your large speakers (and EVERYTHING else) from falling on your child. Sure it's fun to joke about protecting the speakers in various cruel ways but your mindset will eventually morph into seeing things as a parent whose job it is to protect the child from dangers. This is no one else's responsibility, quite a large realization as a new parent if you ask me.

Babyproofing is challenging and fascinating unto itself, but is nice because it goes in phases. Do you need to secure the kitchen drawers when they can't yet stand? Nope. Should you watch your child's development and sort out in your head what might need doing next? Yes! Should you crawl around on the floor with them to see things from their perspective? Yes! And bring a vacuum, Swiffer, etc. with you. Good luck!