To think that teaching children to share is daft?

[virginpinkmartini]

Maybe not in a communal play situation, where the toys/ treats etc are not theirs alone to begin with. But to demand child A to give up their toy/ treat/ turn to child B because 'sharing is caring' makes no sense to me. I, as an adult, am not obligated to let my friends borrow my shit, so it's not a life 'skill' that follows you through life. Also, it feeds into the entitlement that I've seen displayed by children (and adults tbh) who insist that they are owed a turn/ a stake just because another individual has something nice they like. I think children should be encouraged to be kind to others, and explained to why exactly its nice to hospitable, but not forced to if they don't want to. Your property is your own and it should be respected.

I saw a situation yesterday that really annoyed me. We were sat eating then 2 mums, both with a couple of children each, sat behind us.
Whist the mums were ordering one girl took something off the other one and wouldn’t give it back despite the girl asking nicely. The takers mum arrived back and did take it off her girl to give back to the other but then got her phone and told her daughter she would put the game on for her to play. When, inevitably, the other girl said she wanted to see the mother declared loudly “well you can’t see Daisy because you don’t want to share with Lucy so you can’t share her game”

What a cow. She did other stuff that made it very obvious she didn’t like the other girl, I was glad when her own mum arrived back at the table.

(Not real names btw)

We teach DS to be polite, but if he doesn't want to share 'his' toys, food, treats, whatever, then when he says 'no' it means no.

Sharing is nice, offering is nice, but like hell I'd ever teach my child he has to give anything of his to anyone else just because they want it or to play with it.

Thankfully most parents at our local playgroups are the same. It encourages genuine play and kindness, instead of platitudes and resentment.

When my friends come round I share stuff with them: My food, my music, my sofa, my board games (wild nights at ours!)etc Doesn't mean they take them home.

And how does this work when you've 2 or 3 children? Do you really go with the line that each child's toy are their "personal possessions" and they get to decide whether or not to share them with siblings.

I taught my children to share with each other and with guests. And I also used the "guest gets the 1st turn" approach.

And my kids certainly aren't doormats.

Being kind and getting along with other people takes you pretty far in life imo.

@Focalpoint well... yes. My kids don't have to share their personal possessions. Just like I never had to when I was a kid.

That's true @Yestermo but they share the things that you have offered. Presumably if they just started helping themselves to things out of the kitchen cupboard you would be a bit . I think helping your child to think about who is coming over and what toys that person would like to play with is considerate.

Surely the "sharing your toys" is something we use with small children to introduce the concept of being generous and decent in general?

There are people I know who happily take favours from others and never return them. At the end of the day why should someone force you to do it? If another often mum picks up your children from school I assume you'd try and do something nice in return.

@Focalpoint Absolutely! I’m a bit confused as to why posters think teaching your kids to share is teaching them to be a doormat. It’s just teaching them part of how not to be a dickhead and that life is too short to get into a scrap with your friends over a $2 bucket and spade.

I find this subject very interesting, thank you for sharing (ha!) your thoughts, OP.

I think our cultural expectations around sharing place expectations on children we wouldn't place on adults. Like you, OP, I often think that if I was working on my laptop in a cafe and someone came in wanting a go, and someone else told me to share, I wouldn’t be very impressed. And I would rightly think it was bonkers.

But where I live, it’s absolutely the norm, and I really struggle with not wanting to force DD to share, but worrying that people will think I’m rude!

Second, I think parents do a lot of telling kids to share (by barking ‘share!’) but without much explaining of how. It needs teaching, ‘like, you take the bucket and X can take the shovel, and together you can fill the bucket with sand’. Or whatever.

And thirdly, I also heard (on a podcast called Your Parenting Mojo, for anyone interested) that our cultural expectations are sharing are really specific to Western culture now. It’s not universal. And they also said that developmentally, genuine sharing is cognitively almost impossible for little kids. They don't have enough understanding of ownership and the passage of time to really be into turn taking or anything.

I don’t know where that leaves us. But it’s all very interesting.

I feel uncomfortable when a stranger asks their child to share something with my child when the child doesn’t want to.
If my DC has a friend round I tell her “your friend will want to play with your toys just as you like to play with theirs when you go to theirs”
If a strange child asked to share I would tell the child DC doesn’t want to.

@MonstranceClock genuinely curious how this works when you've more than 1 child. Do you have communal toys and personal toys?

Say one child got an xbox for Christmas and after a while decided not to allow a sibling to play it. Would you agree that was ok? And then if second child really wanted to and asked for an Xbox for their birthday - would you buy them their own?

Yes, my kids have their own toys. I've never met anyone who buys "communal" toys.

I'd expect something like an xbox to be communal with things like barbies being their own. I don't see a contradiction

There's a difference between choosing to share, cake, wine, etc and forced sharing- someone demanding your take away coffee and you give it to them. I also don't and didn't enforce sharing. I don't believe you should. But taught kindness and that seemed to work- I have a very open and inclusive kid who does share. I never taught this by taking things of her and giving it to other kids- which is basically what enforced sharing does. You don't deserve to play with this because someone else's wants and demands trumps yours. It's a fine line though, between then being selfish, and being a doormat. There's no right or wrong though I reckon as long as the end result isn't an entitled little brat.

I have 4 dc, so the sharing with your siblings has been a big issue in our house. The way I decided to handle it was that, if you are given something as a gift, it is yours to decide upon sharing for about a month after your birthday, at which point it enters into the general family toy pool. They all had a few special items including lovies that were never required to be shared and it usually became pretty obvious which toys those were going to be from the outset. We talked about it as a family and they were usually good about it as protecting the rights of the siblings protected their rights as well.

With regard to sharing the general toys between them or visiting friends we had a policy of taking turns rather than sharing (as sharing implies ownership of a toy, and they dont own the general toys, our family owns them)

If DC A is playing with a car and DC B wants a turn, they can go up to DC A and ask "when you are finished with the car, can I have a turn please?"
DC A has to say yes, but is then allowed to finished their turn. Interestingly enough the DC usually finished playing with the car quite quickly because they knew someone wanted it, and they could get it back if they wanted by asking for another turn after DC B (it wasnt play now or never get it again iyswim)
If DC A was cheeky enough to say no you cant have a turn, they would have the toy removed (and given to DC B for not following the rules of playing in a friendly way.) If DC A took too long to finish the turn, a parent was called in to adjudicate - but it really didnt happen past aged 4 ish. Visiting DC used to catch on pretty quickly as well

So for us it wasnt about ownership and sharing things that you owned, it was about being friendly and taking turns with general play items and toys

@MonstranceClock surprised you've never met a family with communal toys.

in this house we have load - LEGO, jigsaws, books, beach toys, sandpit when they were younger and now footballs, all the garden toys, most sports equipment.

Xbox is technically belongs to my son but is played with equally by all children in the family. If he tried to stop the others using it because it is "his" (and the others weren't unreasonably hogging it), I'd ban him from it.

Different strokes for different folks I guess.

But sharing is mostly required in situations where children don't have ownership over what they are playing with, therefore sharing is completely reasonable.

Sharing applies to toys at playgroups, playground equipment etc. Equally, if a child invites a friend over then they need to share their toys, as they have invited that friend over to play.

I can't think of many situations where what you say would apply. If a child brings their personal toy(s) to playgroup then they should be prepared to share them. If this isn't possible then it should be left at home. This is why children aren't allowed to bring their own toys to school or nursery, as it causes fights.

We talk about taking turns, borrowing/lending and letting people have a go with our dcs.

But I don’t like “share” when it actually means give it up for some other kid just because they’re upset it’s not yet their turn. We finish our turn, make sure we haven’t spent too long and hand it over/get off the toy etc.

We have communal items at home - TV and radio is an example. So we all have a go. Sometimes I let the dcs borrow my phone or tablet. That, for me, is sharing.

I grew up in a big family so a lot was shared including space (eg you move out of your room if guests come). Sure you protect things that may get broken, or which are v valuable eg I don’t think I would allow someone to borrow my engagement ring.

But otherwise with most things I would tell my child to share if they saw another child looking like they wanted a go. If my child was reluctant I’d try and negotiate with the other kid - they could play if after a certain amount of time, my ds could get it back again? Often the reluctance to share is due to a fear of not getting it back. Maybe they have another reason - like fear of it getting broken, which can be explained to other child.

Conversely if my child wanted a go on something, I’d encourage them to ask (because I don’t think there is a problem with asking). If the answer is no even if you commit to returning it after 5 min then I would say my child should go and do something else.

Sharing with guests, including guests in a game is one thing.

Letting kids you don’t know In a pub garden take your kids toys off them under the guise of ‘sharing’ : not ok!

‘Sharing’ is a very conceptual concept . I taught ours how to ‘take turns’: your turn, her turn, your turn, his turn etc, so that they got the idea that your toy is not gone forever if another child plays with it.

Visitors to ours: special toys go away, others they take turns. Vice versa happens at friends.

Adult version: special food put away, all sharing food out and on offer.

In the park with dcs scooter/bike/toy: goes on or by the buggy when not used. No sharing.

Adult version: work lunch in the fridge, no sharing.

I think it's important in some situations not to share but others to take turns.

Xbox is technically belongs to my son but is played with equally by all children in the family. If he tried to stop the others using it because it is "his" (and the others weren't unreasonably hogging it), I'd ban him from it.

My kids are nearly 5 & 7 so this hasn't actually come up yet, but DH and I have discussed this a few times. And electronics/ consoles won't be brought for an individual child, either a join present or a family toy for everyone.

I wouldn't buy DD a toy and tell her DS can play with it whenever he likes, because then it's not really her's is it?

I would rather it wasn't either of their personal toy and save the drama.

It's like buying one child a trampoline for their birthday, that to me is a cop out and definitely a communal toy. It's the adult equivalent of getting a new washing machine for your birthday.

My kid's always share with eachother out of personal choice, but I wouldn't force it. Don't want to share? That's fine, but you need to take it to your room and play by yourself. They quickly work out for themselves that this isn't much fun.

I usually use phases like. "I think it would be kind to let X have a turn, but it's your choice." Or "If it was X's toy, would you want them to share with you?''

Someone, I don't know who, taught my now adult DS to share. He is now very generous with chocolates and sweets that he has bought or been given. A far nicer adult than I am.

I'm surprised at that rainatnight little children often seem to have an inbuilt sense of fairness. DS is 3 and often wants to share food. He'll ask DM for 4 digestive biscuits and DM will say that's too many but then he'll explain it's 1 digestive for him, 1 for mummy and daddy, and one for nonna. Even little pre-verbal babies when I worked in a nursery would try to give me bits of their lunch
Maybe that only works for food though, as that's more of a communal thing and DC often see people eat together?

Sorry, I think they meant even younger than that - show was talking about toddlers so I guess they meant two year olds? And I think you’re right about food. Both DD and DS tried to ‘feed’ me from when they were babies.