To not make my son share?

And this is exactly the kind of scenario where sharing is fair and it’s a good teachable moment. He’s had plenty of time with the toys, someone has arrived who doesn’t have any, and he can share something he has already used for a long time so that they have something as well as him. It’s pretty much a textbook lesson in sharing that isn’t unfair to either party.

I don't understand how it's sharing if your child only shares when they have 'actively finished playing' with something. It's like saying: "Oh, let me share my chips with you. I don't want them anyway!". You're teaching him that if he doesn't want something then it's OK to 'share' it - rather than being willing to give up something you DO want as it's fair for someone else to have a turn.

Your son has taken more than he should and then hogged them for an hour. 2 buckets, a watering can, a float plus other small toys so what another 3?4? Toys.

He didn’t need all that and he didn’t need it for the long.

It’s seems it’s meant to be a shared play not a hoarding event.

You are being so unreasonable I hope this a reverse. Your child held on to loads of shared toys for an hour that’s terrible. If I were another parent I would definitely have taken one if you persisted in not sharing. Maybe buy some toys and take your own next time if you want to hog them.

Yes. If we take "a few" to mean at least three, then he had at least seven toys to himself. Possibly more like ten. You shouldn't have let him take so many, OP.

Pool toys should be shared - one kid shouldn’t have multiple if others have none.

He’d had an hour of playing with them totally to himself which is good going!

I’m all for not feeling obliged for your child to share something they’ve only just got or that is theirs, if he had one thing then I wouldn’t have made him give it away, but multiple communal pool toys he’s had for an hour are a different kettle of fish.

If you didn't look around to see whether there were any toys left for later arrivals I very much doubt you saw if this other family also approached other toy hoggers! I expect they asked your DS because he had so many items. Maybe they had watched for half an hour and seen how long he had them? I think they should have asked you rather than taken from your child but it was probably obvious you had no intention of intervening.

If this is a genuine post,i think it depends on wether there were other similar toys available for other children to play with.
If toys were limited i think it reasonable to share,especially after 45-60 mins of one child playing with the toys .
Your child had 2 buckets and had played with them for an hour why wouldn't you suggest he share and give the other child an opportunity to play with a bucket?
Honestly your child would gain more from learning to share in the scenario you describe.

Your child had 4 large communal items (two a duplicate) and a few smaller items.

Can you really not see the issue of having that many items that are communal? What if another child would have liked a toy but didn’t have any as your child had 6 items?

Even if another child only had one item it would be polite to share some of the 6 your child had

It was a shared pool with only a certain amount of toys. You and your child need to learn to share them.

Wow. That’s embarrassing behaviour. From you. You’re teaching your child to be selfish and inconsiderate. Well done you!

I would not have let my daughter take more than she can hold.

Is this a reverse? Sharing after 10-15 minutes is a good thing to introduce. He can’t possibly have been actively playing with it all at once.

I was already to agree with you but he/you took a LOT of shared toys, and kept them all for your one child for an hour! That's very selfish and greedy.

The list of toys you let him choose and take away from everyone else who came is way too much op.

I don't think children should be forced to "share" hand over their own toys, but this is a different scenario entirely and I feel sad for the other kid in the pool that got out having not played with anything but one bucket while your child had lots of toys you were allowing them to hog.

AND took them as far as possible from where the other children were, with, as the OP has confirmed, his mother carrying some of the stash for him.

I mean can you just imagine the sight!

No not ok , 2 buckets, a watering can and some other toys for 45 minutes, he should have been told he had had his turn.

Perhaps no-one else's child was hogging an armful of toys for 45 minutes, some of which were duplicates anyway.

This. YWVU. 10 minutes ok an hour??? That was absolutely not ok.

You were unreasonable to take that many toys. He should have taken only what he could actively play with. That sounds like the watering can and two buckets? If he wasn't playing with all the items he should have given them up.

I would have intervened when the other parent got involved.

Because he had loads of toys probably! Or the ones sitting by his side unused were the ones that the other child wanted.He couldn’t possible play with them all at once.

One or two toys is a fair share.. you took far too many.

If you'd taken one or two then you would maybe be justified not giving them up. But even then, if there were loads of kids with nothing, I'd have encouraged mine to pass them on after half the time we were due to be in there.

Admittedly, my DD is now 25, but you are being staggeringly unreasonable.
I'd also be ridiculously pissed off with the 'no thank you ' answer.

How can you genuinely believe it's not unreasonable for one child to take 2 buckets, a watering can, a few small toys and a float, from shared stuff at a public swimming session.

It's a different environment to home therefore I'd have said, in this circumstance, the rules have to be different. Your child had two buckets and several other things for over an hour. When he gets to school, he will be expected to take his turn and also (as an early years educator) timed sharing may well be a thing. The swimming session wasn't school related, however there were other children there and it's a good way to prepare him as such. After an hour, surely it is not unreasonable for him to give up one of his buckets. Perhaps encourage him next time to try playing with some of the others toys and let the other children take their turns.

I understand that the other mother should have spoken to you first before taking the toy from your child, but from her perspective, it sounds as though she had been watching for a while and assumed you weren't going to intervene. In her eyes, her child came first, just like yours does for you and at the point she took whatever it was from your child, hers had been waiting his turn for a very long time.

An hour is a long time to hog toys. I’d have told my son to share. Short time, fair enough, but sounds like their child had few toys and yours had quite a few for an hour.