4 Responses to sharing

1. 
   Jo said: On September 2, 2010

   Sharing is actually a concept that is not within the grasp of younger children, children are naturally egocentric for the first several years of their lives so don’t get angry at them when this is not working as planned. You must also think fairly from the eyes of your child – you should not expect them to share their brand new toy, how would you feel if you just got a new car and I wanted the key to take it for a test drive before you’d even broken it in – that’s just ludicrous and no one would blame you for feeling that way. It is the same with your child. But that said you can still encourage and praise your child when they do start to grasp the concept.
2. 
   greatmum said: On September 8, 2010

   Siblings can be the hardest people to share with since you’re already sharing your parents with them. One method I tried to warm up our two children when they were young to the idea of sharing, was to buy them a toy that had to share to get the most fun out of it like a ball to kick to each other. Then also when one wanted to specifically play by themselves, if the other wanted to play as well we would also try timing them – giving each child 5 minutes of the ball before swapping. A few fights started but all in all they got used to the idea of ‘ours’ not mine and were more prone to share their other toys with each other after seeing how much fun it was to play with each other.
3. 
   penny said: On September 8, 2010

   Ask your son why he doesn’t want to share. I found with my children my son didn’t want to share with a younger sibling because she would dribble on it. When we discovered that I asked him if it would be ok if his little brother could play with it if I watched him and made sure he didn’t dribble on it, he then said that would be ok. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to share as he didn’t want his toy ruined.
4. 
   octomum said: On September 8, 2010

   Sharing is a difficult thing to learn for a child. Take it slow and don’t get too frustrated. When your son does share praise him greatly for it. Try o encourage him to share by saying things like ‘is it ok if little sister plays with this since you have that other toy’ and when you get a yes again great praise.