To not make my son share?

We absolutely teach our children to share, but our rule is that if they're still actively playing with something, they can finish their turn first.

In a public leisure facility with a lot of children, and you think you are “reasonable” and not selfish to allow your DS a “turn” of over an hour???

Delusional.

Because you as the adult didn’t try to intervene and use the situation to help him to understand that shared toys are just that, toys for sharing. If they are his own personal toys then fair enough, but you had deliberately taken him away from the rest of the group, with more toys than he could carry or play with and then not helped him to recognise that other children also wanted to use the toys.

You are putting the onus on a three year old to understand the social situation , which he clearly doesn’t, instead of helping him to recognise situations where sharing is the appropriate response. You are the one at fault, not your three year old. He is not being targeted, you are setting him up to misunderstand how social skills develop.

She is right. Your son isn’t sharing and you’re not dealing with it. This is presumably why he prefers “independent play”.

This. Are you any good at sharing yourself OP?

Exactly this. I can't believe OP didn't even think to do this!

Are you for real? This is a wind up right?
YABU!

Obviously OP isn't going to come back since the unanimous verdict is that she was unreasonable.
How you could even think this was ok is beyond me @drearyllama . How would you feel if you arrived and there were no toys left? Or just a bucket and no exciting watering can? You can't honestly think you'd happily accept your child never getting a turn with the toys.
Yes a child can take their turn with a toy - but that's exactly what it is, a turn. That doesn't mean they get to keep a toy indefinitely whilst another gets no turn, potentially for an entire session?! In what world is that ok. I hope you don't have another child because you are setting yourselves up for a world of problems literally a hundred times a day if eldest thinks he doesn't have to share anything for as long as he wants. Will you be happy when little 18mo sibling is sitting screaming and crying for an hour because big brother has had a watering can all that time, I think not.

You were selfish and unreasonable. How many toys did you actually hog for an hour?!
Yes, let your child play with them but not so many for such a long amount of time.

Do better.

Totally depends on how many other toys and how many other children there were. If there were insufficient buckets etc to go around, then yes YABU. That would definitely be hogging and not sharing. In a public environment like that, I would give my child the fewest toys possible to keep them entertained. And if I saw other children had fewer/none and were wanting something to play with, id be erring on sharing and saying “come on, we’ve had this for a while now, let’s give someone else a turn”.

Yeah you’re embarrassing OP. I wouldn’t go back if I were you.

I don't know. Maybe because he had 2 buckets, a watering can, and a few other toys as well? But sure, as long as your child is happy, it doesn't matter if other kids have nothing eh?

I mean you're doing a great job if you don't want him to have any friends

So he had about 6-8 toys to himself, and 2 buckets? I don't support the other kid snatching, but your child had far too many toys, and he had them for far too long.

I kind of agree with the other family that he refused to share and you weren't encouraging him to.

2 buckets, a watering can, a few small toys and a float You appear to be under the impression that it’s a library and that your child has ‘dibs’ on the toys once he’s selected them. You are responsible for this whole situation and for your child being upset. You let him take far too many toys. If he’d just taken a bucket and a float, you’d have had the moral high ground and could have stepped in, told the woman that he was still playing with it and would hand it over when he’d finished. But you didn’t. You let him take as much as he wanted and then swept him off to another part of the pool so none of the other children would get to play with those things.

I strongly suspect you are making a rod for your own back here. You’re certainly teaching your child a dangerous lesson.

I would most certainly have made him share his toys as he was playing with a lot of them - more than he could handle - for an extraordinarily long time.

it's like someone sitting at a table for four in a crowded park cafe for hours and refusing to let anyone else sit there while they read a newspaper, their empty coffee cup in front of them. why don't they either move to another smaller table or let someone else share the table? they're entitled to stay there... but they're still an arse.

Your being very selfish and raising an arse. Taking the toys for an hour is arsehole behaviour. Your child will have trouble making friends if he doesn't learn to share.

Op I'm all for taking turns and not having to give your things away as soon as another child asks for them but he kept a lot of toys for a very long time. If it had just been one or two items it would have been different. If it had been that many items for just ten minutes it would have been fine. But so many toys for so long meant that some kids would basically never get a chance to play with them at all. I don't think that is how the swimming pool planned for the shared toys to be used.

Taking turns and reciprocating is not the same as sharing. If the child owns something and is asked to share it e.g. a particular toy no need to share. But if the toys are communal to all then sharing is part of the process whilst he takes opportunity to try an alternative. It also develop social skills. Give him an alternative first before giving the bucket to the other child " this is for this boys turn"

Yabu. Letting him have his turn for an hour, taking him away with a large number of toys as he wants to play alone is not teaching him to share. If he wants to play alone and keep toys to himself 1 thing is enough You are setting him up for a challenging time at school he simply won't get an hour to play uninterrupted he will be expected to properly share and turn take

Your concept of sharing is off. It’s not sharing if the child who has the toys gets to play with them until they’re bored of it and only then has to “share”.

Your kid had 45 minutes with them - which is quite a long time for a young child in a pool anyway - it’s quite selfish to just take multiple things and not be happy to even let go of one thing to another child.

Sorry but you sound entitled. Was he 'actively playing' with all the toys for an hour? And then you are preaching to others about sharing? Just because your kid said no thank you, doesn't mean that he can get away with doing whatever he wants.

Encouraging your child to play with others and share their toys helps to turn them into people that other people like OP. Stop hiding down the end of the pool away from other kids so he can have all the toys to himself, it’s weird.

This is going to be the same mum who comes back in a couple of years and cannot figure out why:

1. Her son has no friends
2. Why none of the other mums want to be bothered with her

I took my 3½-year-old to a toddler swim session today where they put loads of toys and floats out. We arrived at the start of the session and he chose 2 buckets, a watering can, a few small toys and a float, then we went to the opposite end of the pool away from everyone else because he prefers independent play.

Ive a feeling OP arrives early to be the first to ensure her little prince gets everything he wants, goes down the other end helping him carry a ridiculous amount of toys, so he can have all the toys to himself play independently.

Why would you take so many toys? He can't play with all of them at the same time. You absolutely should have shared. The other adults or employees must have been talking about what a greedy person you were.