To not make my son share?

You are a lovely teaching your DC not to share communal toys. If he wants to hog lots of toys he needs to bring his own.

I’m not sure I agree with your version of sharing to be honest. Sharing isn’t playing with something as long as you want and then letting someone else have it when you no longer want it. I would have found it hard if you were at a pool as I always tell my children they need to wait their turn but with you there wouldn’t have been a turn for them to have.

Yeah, you are meant to model the kind of behaviors you want your child to show. If it was their personal toys fair enough, but they were shared toys for all the children there.

The fact you think your child is picked on and singled out is very telling.

Because nobody else's child probably had that many toys 🙄 you need to teach your child to share.

Unless your son is an octopus then yes you're unreasonable and raising your child to be selfish. He chose a lot of toys for one child. You could of limited his choice to two toys and told him he could swap when he's finished.

You'd let him play with multiple toys whilst the other child had none, not sure what message you're giving your child, sounds like you're teaching him to be selfish. I think you should take your own toys to the pool since he needs so many. Yes you're unreasonable.

I struggle to believe this isn’t just rage bait tbh, but no you can’t just hoarde loads of toys for an hour. Massively unreasonable.

Also with my kids in these sorts of scenarios if another child comes to try and take something they can say no if still playing the first time, but then we’ll say ‘okay that child wants a turn, so finish up and we’ll pass it over’ - rather than ‘screw you other kid mine can have it as long as he likes’

I totally agree with you that children should not have to give up toys straight away, and I always encourage "please can I have it after you?". No child should expect to get what they want straight away. However, once they know someone else is waiting, children need to be taught to be considerate and bring their turn to a natural end soon (within the next 5-10 minutes is reasonable).

The toys were shared resources, they did not belong to your son. Therefore it wasn't appropriate for him to hog them for so long, especially as he knew someone else was waiting. It's not his fault, he's too young to understand this. As his parent, you should be teaching him to share equipment that is but his fairly and consider the needs of other children.

The other parent was wrong to take it from him, but I can totally understand why she was annoyed. Your son had lots of toys and you, as his grown up, were enabling him to exhibit selfish behaviour by not encouraging him to share any of it with other children who had asked for a turn.

Your really need to modify your viewpoint on turn taking with sharing resources, otherwise your son is going to find it incredibly hard to share at nursery and school. No way is he going to be allowed hour long turns with equipment in there. You are setting him up for major issues in the future if you don't teach him to take turns with other children.

You are being very very unreasonable (to the point where I'm thinking this is probably a wind up).

Here was an ideal opportunity for You to teach Your child to share. Sadly..

When there's a limited number of shared toys or resources then you have to take turns.
Doesn't matter if you're at a toddler swim session or the gym.

If one kid has two buckets and the other has none, then the adults need to step in and redistribute so they have one each.

If my child had been playing with a watering can for 45 minutes and another child wanted a turn, then I would have helped them share.
45 minutes is more than enough of a turn on a shared toy.

No child needs all of those toys for an hour.

He didn’t need two buckets and if he was playing with allll those toys at once then he must have hands like shovels.

It's a lot of toys for one child if there aren't others available. Since they were communal toys the reasonableness of your response depends, to me, on whether or not others were available. And I think that's on you to monitor when you've taken such a hefty whack.

I absolutely disagree with the idea that a child has to give up what they are playing with just because another child wants that particular item. I think children should be able to get engrossed in playing with what they have without having that interrupted because another child has FOMO. And it's far more important for the other child to learn to redirect their interest to something that's available than it is for the playing child to learn to give up what they are engrossed in. But that's very different from not giving part of what you have up if you are using more than a fair amount of a communal resource.

I'm assuming because he had taken lots of toys for himself and refused to share. Most parents would only allow their child to take one or two toys at a time. Your child had taken at least 6 toys (assuming that he only took two of the small toys so he may have taken even more).

Because he had multiple toys on his own for ages? YABU to let your son hog multiple toys for such a long time. Letting him hang on to one toy would probably have been acceptable but not multiple

Agreed

Your child hogged the items for an hour - good socialisation would involve your child taking items - giving some back to the 'pot' then taking some different ones.

They can say 'I'm using this right now.. you can have it when I'm done' then - give the item over a few minutes later - having more items than hands at that age is a bit greedy.

I would probably have said at the start 'you can take lots to play with while it's quiet, but if more people come, we'll have to let them have a turn'.

Managing expectations reduces the drama and reminds children that they can make the most of having lots of toys if that's not depriving anyone else, but they are aware that things may change and it's important to be considerate.

Teaching a child that they don't have to share communal resources is not going to serve them well in life.

Incidentally, I was once at a park where kids were having a party and they had a pinata. The sweets all spilled out, they all ran forward and grabbed handfuls, then they sat in a circle, put all the sweets in the middle and shared them all out, with the birthday child getting double picks as they all went round. All organised by the kids without any intervention from the adults - I was very impressed! That's the kind of attitude towards sharing I aspire to for my kids.

Arriving at the start of the session and then taking a bunch of toys to play with alone for over an hour is bad form unless there were enough toys for everyone to have done the same. Just because you get there early doesn’t mean it’s yours for the taking.

I agree with your take on sharing, ie only sharing when finished your turn, but your son had far too many toys that were meant for all the kids and was hogging them all for too long, YABU

So potentially there were no similar toys left, your son had loads, and you didn’t ask him to share? YABU.

If they were your own toys, fine. But shared toys YABU. I mean whay do you don't you go to a play group that has limited wiggle cars or trikes? Just let your child use them the whole session if they fancy? The etiquette to shared toys is similar to swings in the playground. Your kid jas a turn for a reasonable amount of time (minutes, not hours!) and then you let another child have a go. Alternatively, you can encourage children to play together and take short turns back and forth. But if every parent let their kids play as long as they like before sharing, then very little sharing would ever get done. As I say, this applies to shared toys and facilities, anything that's yours is completely optional for sharing. I'd take your on toys next time.

You often wonder how children become selfish and unsociable but your post clearly demonstrates how you are encouraging your child to be just that. And you don't even recognise thd damage you are doing.

You took too many toys. They are there for all the kids. You take one, then when they've had enough of that one you can swap it for another.

OP come on. Your kid had like six toys. That is beyond greedy and he doesn’t need them all. Yeah the kid shoukd have asked nicely but you have no leg to stand on - you didnt think of others so they don’t either.

In a shared environment you pick a few and then rotate them around. YABU

Yes you were both selfish and unreasonable. You are not doing your son any favours by this kind of parenting