Robin's Page

 

Robin Barker's  regular granddaughter diary, and baby care column. Granddaughter Sage also joins us with a baby persepective on life.

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July Diary - what's yours is mine, what's mine is mine

Sage and I often spend Friday afternoon with Soph, my writing friend and her toddler Henri. Henri is nearly a year older than Sage, a sweet-natured, happy fellow, talking well and rather handsome but like most toddlers his age doesn’t like to share very much. Sage loves Henri’s toys in the way that all kids love other kids’ toys (the novelty factor, it’s not as if they don’t have a mountain of their own toys at home) but Henri got pretty upset every time Sage picked something up.

‘Come on Henners,’ says Soph hopefully, ‘Share nicely...’

Practical points

Not sharing and ‘everything is mine’
Most common from fifteen months to three years but let’s face it ‘sharing’ is something most of us have to work at all our lives – think of the loaves and the fishes.

Once toddlers are more familiar with one to one relationships and are given good examples at home of sharing and caring the abrupt refusals to share and the feeling that everything in the world belongs to them fades - up to a point.

Why?

All the usual developmental reasons
Egocentricity
Inability to put themselves in the place of another; cannot understand their feelings or see their perspective
Initially, humans develop a sense of themselves through their possessions – that is why everything is ‘mine’. Some people remain like this for their entire lives.
Concrete thinking predominates (the concept of ‘sharing’ requires abstract thinking)
Individual temperaments contribute to the degree of possessiveness that toddlers feel during these years.

A framework to work within:
Be realistic. Toddlers do not understand the concept of sharing. It starts to form around two and a half to three years and remains a difficult area for quite some time after that.
In order to learn to share your toddler needs to learn what things are his and to feel secure about them (‘his’ mummy and daddy for example, ‘his’ special spoon, ‘his’ blanky). It is reasonable for him to have one or two special toys that he does not have to share (put away when visitors come).
Toddlers can be encouraged to share but it should not be forced upon them. The long-term goal is to help the toddler feel less possessive and ready to share, inside. Sharing, like apologising is best when it becomes more or less voluntary – a little nudging here and there is to be expected.
Have a few rules about toys when conflict occurs. If there is no conflict, do not intervene. Sample rules
The toddler who has the toy first keeps it to play with
Time for the toy is limited if other toddlers want that toy (often toddlers only want a particular toy because someone else has it – when they get it they lose interest).
Ongoing unresolved conflict over a toy might be best managed by removing the toy.

Play times with other toddlers have a tendency to become emotionally laden when outbreaks of possessiveness occur and may not be the best times for teaching about sharing.

The main lessons in sharing come from within the home in calm situations. Parents should model the sharing behaviour that they want to encourage and teach toddlers in concrete ways what to do. ‘Let’s share this apple’, ‘would you like to wear my necklace for a while?’. ‘One for you and one for me’. ‘This belongs to me and this belongs to you’. ‘Edward, the bike belongs to daddy, not you but you can have a ride on it’.

Robin Barker 20©04

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