to think other mums are shit at teaching sharing

[tifflins]

My children are no angels. My parenting is far from perfect, but I do try (really hard) to teach my 3 year old DS to share his toys, not only with friends who visit our home, but strangers in the park or whatever. He finds the whole sharing concept pretty annoying tbh but I persevere. Situation today whereby my son 'borrowed' another little boys' bucket at the splash pool. The other little boy got upset and just as I was telling my DS to give the bucket back, the little boy ran off and told his grandma that a nasty monster had 'stolen' his bucket. The grandma came over at the exact time my DS was (finally) giving back the bucket and said to me in an exasperating tone and heavy sarcastic sigh 'thank you' (as if I was colluding with my DS to steal another boys toy). The boy took his bucket back and promptly dismissed and didnt play with it. Another situation on holiday with friends showed me that my friends' sons toys belonged to him and him alone, but my DS toys were supposed to be shared with this other little boy. At no point on the holiday did she encourage her son to share his toys, despite me bending over backwards to get my DS to share. I mean, for fucks sake, whats wrong with some people?! Anybody elses thoughts on this would be great.

I think we're talking at cross purposes - I completely agree with you there! I'm only talking about toy cars on the beach (god knows why - it's not that relevant to the OP :o)

my son does not just 'take' what he wants
Situation today whereby my son 'borrowed' another little boys' bucket at the splash pool

It doesn't matter how you dress it up, in inverted commas/quotes whatever, your soon took something that was not his, without asking. That isn't borrowing. My definition of borrowing is that you ask first!

My child would have been walking it back over to the boy before he even got a chance to run to his parent/carer then I would have explained about taking stuff that isn't theirs!

And that 'bloody bucket' may have been a recent present, bough especially that day for a day at the pool. To the little lad it belonged to, it was a special little toy that someone picked up & went off with.

It doesn't even matter, one JOT that he didn't play with it afterwards, it was his & he wanted it.

You seem to have a sense of self entitlement, OP that will do your son no favours in the long run.

I don't really get the argument about not taking out special or favourite toys. I couldnt tell you from one day to a next what DS's favourite toy is. It could be his bike, or it could be a broken car or a random piece of Lego. It might been be my left slipper.

But whatever is in favour that day will be exactly what he wants to take out with him. And even if he subsequently goes off it, you can bet your life that the second another child picks it up it will become his most favourite, special, bestest toy in the world ever!

All he knows is that it is his and that someone else has it and he might not get it back. After a bit of explanation he might be reassured enough to let a strange child play with it under his watchful eye, but it is not an automatic reaction. With his little friends or his cousins he wouldn't be fussed if they touched his toys as he knows he will get them back - he will quite often offer them things to play with. But I certainly wouldn't expect him to be automatically comfortable with a strange child taking any of his toys.

your son should have asked 'please can i play with your bucket if you have finished using it'

the other child should have said 'please can i have my bucket back after you have finished'

my kids use these terms and rub along nicely.

If it's something you don't want to share, it stays at home

How about if my dd takes her bike to the park? She gets off to go on the swings? It's OK in your book, for some kid we don't know to come along & have a go on it? After all, it would be, according to you, discarded!

I don't bloody think so! Not least because if the kid breaks it, what recourse do you have? The child would just run off & you have no chance of 1] proving he/she broke it or 2] finding out who it is!

I see discarded as something that has been left behind, not something that isn't being played with by it's owner at the very second. So if a magazine has been left on a beach & the owner has left = fair play. Magazine of beach = owner talking on phone a few feet away from it = not discarded & NOT fair game!

Also, is my car fair game? After all, it is just 'discarded' on the road....

the other way to encourage sharing is to talk about taking turns with items

differentnameforthis you have just summed up my thoughts exactly. If for example I was in town and my son wanted to talk instead of being in his buggy, I wouldn't be impressed at all if another child hopped into it and the mum told me to share the buggy as I wasn't using it at that time. It's exactly the same as the bucket scenario the OP has described.

I remember searching the streets of Amsterdam high and lo, looking for a bucket so as dd could play in the sandpit in the play area at Vondel Park. We were only there for a few days, so we could have just let her play with any old Tom, Dick or Harry's bucket & spade, but that's not the way to do things. Eventually got talking to an English lady living in Amsterdam and she took us to a toy shop, which we would never have found otherwise. If we couldn't have found our own bucket & spade then we would have just not taken dd back to the sandpit.

Sexualharrassment, I thought the OP was busy attending to her newborn and therefore hadn't got to her own DS quick enough before the other boy had gone to his grandma? If my daughter wanted something that didn't belong to her, I would make her ask if she could borrow it and if they said no, I would tell her sorry, it's not hers, she can't play with it. Given in this situation the OP was not right next to her DS when it happened, I can see how her DS might have picked something up which looked discarded and fun to play with.

So no, I would never encourage my kids to take things without asking, but I can see how it happens if something is just lying there.

And if I had been the grandma, I would have encouraged the boy to share. That's all - I know others wouldn't because they think it's not something they should have to do with kids they don't know, but I tend to teach DD to do all sorts of things she doesn't HAVE to do, I just think it's nice if she does do them (sharing being an obvious example, even if in a public place and she doesn't know the kid who wants to play with her stuff).

I suppose I feel the same way about communal play areas where children are likely to play together as I do about pre-school/school. If you take a toy that is just for you to play with, isn't for sharing/swapping, you are isolating yourself from other children and isn't the whole point of going to a communal play area to play with other children?

I'm not talking about really small kids here but once you get to 4 or so, you're on your own going 'ooh look at my lovely train, no you can't have a go with it'. What is the point of that? The owner gets a sense of smug satisfaction and/or is in a permanent state of anxiety that another kid is going to grab the precious toy off them.

boobz same here, i would also encourage my children to share, its NICE.

some of the arguments on here about pushchairs and cars etc are quite simply daft! but then we have lent our car to a friend and last night my dp borrowed a bike light from a friend up the road as he couldnt find his, tomorrow we are helping them out, its just being nice!

we live in a cul-de-sac and the kids from next door or over the road are often in our front garden playing the kids all share the ride ons and footballs etc, sometimes they come across and play on them even when my kids arent out there playing! they only take them across the small road and into their front garden which ican see from my kitchen window and they return them when they are done, its not a big deal tbh.

i just gave a book to another mum at school as well, its a nice book but i dont need it at the moment and she does, i wouldnt say she is close enough to be a friend just someeone i chat to in the school playground. like i said its just anice thing to do, i share and i encourage my kids to share!

I encourage sharing too. I agree with OP in a way, some people are so selfish these days and think their kids are little angels! Also, i often lend my things to people. They are only things after all. Some people are obsessed with 'ownership' of things.

ILoatheMickeyMouseClubhouse (me too, by the way )

Well you could try taking the next one you see, after all, if there is no child in it, you can 'share' it.

Tiffin Random strangers taking things without askin is called stealing, usually committed by fully grown human adults. We are talking about pre-schoolers on a day out!

And pre-schoolers are expected to understand the difference?

They are pre-schoolers. They get as far as "That's mine! He took it!" and "I want that toy he has right now!"

It's nothing to do with mums being shit and it's no different to them than someone taking your car without asking would be to you.

Haha, my kids aren't angels at all, doesn't mean they have to share their stuff with random strangers on the street/beach/sandpit/park tho.

And some people are 'obsessed' with ownership because maybe they don't have a lot of stuff, or perhaps they have to work damned hard to be able to afford stuff, or perhaps the children (like my dd) contributed to some of their stuff, or perhaps they even like the stuff they own??

Why shouldn't people be obsessed with owning what they own? That really is a daft thing to say! Are you suggesting that I ask the drunks in the town centre if they want to share my house?

YABU- agree with most people- there's sharing when playing together and there's lending to another child.
What you want is for everyone to just let your kid have what he likes.

Some of you are being a bit strawman here suggesting that just because someone thinks it's right to ask first that they somehow don't promote sharing.

The difference of opinion seems to be between those who believe anything leaving the house is fair game for any other child to pick up and play with and those that feel that if a child wants to play with a toy that isn't their own they should ask first.

I am in the latter camp, doesn't mean I don't encourage sharing, I would just encourage by children to ask before taking and would expect others to do the same and as long as my own child wasn't playing with it at the time I would encourage my child to share if asked.

It really shouldn't be that controversial either way.

i have said on here that i WOULD ask and get my child to ask, likewise if someone asks my child i will encourage them to share, but i dont make them.

4madboys - but the comparisons with cars and pushchairs etc are valid, because they are something of value to the adult.

The bucket is valuable to the little boy who owned it because he owns it and he's only three, but not to any of the adults involved in decided whether he should have shared it or not. And it's his to share or not share as he pleases.

And since he wasn't asked, he didn't have the chance to say yes or no. He might be a lovely sharer at other times but just objected to it being taken.

But a toy bucket doesn't have much value to an adult, and that's why we feel perfectly happy about telling a child they have to share it because it's nice. When it's not really all that nice to have to share something valuable to you or be left with no option because someone has just taken it without asking.

You say you have lent out things and borrowed things in return,and it's nice. It is nice. But I bet everyone asked first. And it was your decision. Nobody told you that you had to share it whether you wanted to or not.

x posted

Have only read the op. I have always taught my boys to share their toys, to ask if they want to borrow someone else's (ie a bucket lying in the sandpit), and to say thank you and take/put it back when they're done with it.

Most parents seem to do the same here (am not in the UK) but once when ds2 was 18 months, he was sitting in a paddling pool with another child who had some little plastic cups. He picked one up as it sort of floated past, and the other child's mother immediately took it out of his hand, picked all the others up and put them in a carrier bag. Child stayed in water, toys put away. I was gobsmacked.

Takethisone - I think that is the issue I have with the scenario in the OP. It wasn't a question of two children having a dispute over a toy and two adults trying to encourage sharing or explain the concept of sharing. It was a situation where one child believed that his toy had been taken, possibly for good, by another child and where, by the sound of things, there wasn't much happening in terms of the other child's mother getting it back for him.

The OP then effectively projected her views on sharing and on the situation onto the child and his grandmother and found them wanting. It wasn't about sharing really - it was about her belief that the child should have reacted in a particular way. It wasn't for her to make the decision that the other child should "share".