Downward trend in card values?

[bn2cardz]

I have 4 children (3 born since being a member of this site). My oldest is 7. There are posts from back when she loved looking through my cards and reading auction catalogs with me. When one would come in the mail she would be ecstatic to go through it with me when I got home from work. She even, as a 3 year old, stole an Aaron card from me and I found it in her toy box. I went ahead and let her keep it and put it in her room on display.
As the years have gone on she has already started shifting, still a collector but with no specific focus (including but not limited to rocks, pokemon cards, shopkins, my little pony figures). She does enjoy the cards, but I can tell it is purely for the connection with me not the cards.

My 5 year old daughter has a very short attention span and only wants what her siblings want, but that could be anything at any given time so there is no special interest towards cards.

My 4 year old son desperately asks for cards all the time. His interest lies mainly with basketball, but likes the cards of any sport (so from me that is baseball). Packs of cards have been used by us to motivate him for a few years. He has been asking about storage for them recently and wants me to read the names of every card one by one to him.

My 3 year old son has just recently shown a true interest in cards. He has been delayed in potty training so they have been used as a motivator to get him to use the toilet. The other night when I went to check on them after they had gone to bed he had all his stuffed animals and blankets shoved to the end of the bed and was only cuddling his packs of cards (he insist they always be put back in the packs so he can "reopen" them at later times).

I am always aware that their interest is only there to feel closer to me, and I don't know where it will be in years as I try to transition out of the hobby. It has been interesting to watch the transition of each child and their interest in the cards.

[h2oya311]

Andy - very excellent post. I wish I had thought of using baseball cards for potty training and for other positive behavior rewards! Instead, we motivated with ice cream.

[Exhibitman]

Yeah in retrospect I think I would’ve been willing to crap in a bucket for a pack of cards too.

[ALR-bishop]

I know from watching Star Trek that in the year 2366 a Topps 1962 Roger Maris card from the Kivas Fajo collection is worth a bunch of whatever the local currency was then. How they maintained the scent of bubble gum though is as much a mystery to me as transporter and warp drive technology