What about respect for the father or other family member who traded an hour of their life at work so she could have nice things at the house? �(more than 1hr. for some toys.). I would be willing to buy a bear at the yard sale for that purpose if she asked, but wouldn't respect spontaneous destruction of property just for something to do.
When you give someone a gift, you don't get to decide how they use it. You can express the purpose for which you intended it, but if the recipient chooses to use it for another purpose, that's their decision. Sometimes my MIL (who is an compulsive shopper) gives me gifts that I just throw away. I don't feel compelled by my respect for her to keep every single piece of garbage that she gives me. I don't see
any reason a child should not have the same autonomy over her possessions that an adult has. Kids need to be trusted to make their own decisions, even if they sometimes make what we'd consider to be the wrong ones.
If it makes you feel any better, only one of her stuffed animals was
ruined by this process (though nearly all of them have much shorter hair at this point) and that was a 30-year-old thrift-store plush care bear.
And she got hours of entertainment value, plus a lot of great practice using scissors.
