To not have made my son share

[Noshare]

At a soft play type place today and my son was playing with something, another little girl kept coming up and trying to take it off him (both about 2.5). I kept politely saying 'sorry sweetheart he's playing with this one' and giving her something else which she'd take away and play with for a bit and then come back.

My son can get a bit fixated on certain things so he was playing with this for about 15 mins.

Anyway, the little girls mum came up and asked my son if he would share it now and let her have a turn and I said 'hes playing with this at the moment but as soon as he's finished she can have a go with it'. She scoffed and said don't I teach my children to share. I replied that our definition of sharing obviously differs.

They were like blocks in different shapes but she wanted the specific block my son had even though she'd piled up the others which were practically the same if that makes sense?

If he was on a swing or something and it was the only one then I'd of course tell him to let someone else have a turn now after a certain time but I don't think sharing means just giving someone what they ask for when they ask for it if that makes sense? There were plenty of other things practically the same as this item her daughter could play with.

Was I being unreasonable and failing to teach my son to share by not making him just hand over what he was playing with the moment he was asked?!

Bollocks were you. You saw the earlier reference to Lord of the Flies and so you mentioned it again. A joke is generally funny, isn't it? Your posts on this thread have been criticising the OP, so clearly this wasn't intended as a joke at all.

Honestly, you need to calm down

Just because you couldn't see it wasn't serious

Of course yanbu

You seem terribly invested in someone else's post, don't you? Are you perhaps a wee bit embarrassed to have been shown up looking silly?

What on earth are you talking about

You seem incredibly angry about a comment that was very unlikely to be serious

I'm not angry at all. I think you perhaps need to put down the wine glass.

Typical mn response when a poster knows they've acted like an idiot

Not all of us sit on mn on a Sunday night drinking you know

God some of you need to get back onto the playground 😂😂😂😂

Meh I would’ve just told my dd to play with something else, I wouldn’t have expected the other kid to give up the toy. And I can’t believe the girls mother even got involved. It’s not that serious

Only if helicopter parenting is available.

Gosh everyone is so judgey on here 😂

Yanbu.
One child having all of the blocks isn't sharing. She didn't need all of them, it's not like a jigsaw where you can't complete it if someone else has a piece.

YANBU. The girls mother should have explained she can't go around taking all the blocks off all the other kids, I wonder how many of those kids she upset by doing just that.

Right that’s it, I’m telling on you ALL

@EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall you seem to have low expectations of her. No babies should be in an actual soft play, but if there’s a safe baby area for under 2s you should totally leave her to its That doesn’t mean ignore. People seem to think there are two options - helicopter or ignore. A parent role should be to observe and intervene if needed for safety reasons. To narrate sometimes to help them navigate interactions and feelings. To sportscast not referee.

Toddlers learn respect from what adults model, not from the arbitrary rules adults tell them. Trust in your daughter and she will surprise you.

“Trust is also a gift for parents, because it means we don’t waste our energy trying to urge development forward or “fix” issues that are usually best resolved by providing children with a nurturing environment and leaving the rest up to them. Attempting to force development before a child is ready sets us both up for unnecessary frustration and failure. We all know the expression, “you can lead a horse to water, but…”

www.janetlansbury.com/2014/01/theyll-grow-into-it-trusting-children-to-develop-manners-toilet-skills-emotional-regulation-and-more/

Our society as so little appreciation of what babies and toddlers are capable of. All of our parenting revolves around control, which is alien throughout most of human history, with most societies tapping into toddlers innate desires to work hard and be part of something. Hunt, Gather, Parent is a very good book on this.

So many posters here seem to think interfering and forcing children to ‘share’ when you see fit prevents them from being spoilt. It’s the opposite. Taking away their opportunities for learning and autonomy and responsibility is what makes them spoilt. They learn manners through modelling and guidance, not being forced to do things. There’s a lot of research to support this, but I haven’t seen anyone claiming the contrary cite any evidence?

Haha is this a reverse?

The almost exact same thing happened at our local soft play last week and I expressly told the mother in question that I don't get involved in the politics of toddlers and no I wouldn't be making my three year old share a toy that he had been playing with for a few minutes.

I don't think the majority of us need parenting or grandparents advice from someone who doesn't seem to know what to do without reading about it in a book or from listening to some 'expert' thanks 🤣

Not okay to hog a communal toy for 15 minutes in a shared space. What the little girl wanted to do with it is actually irrelevant. It's not nice to keep someone waiting for such a long time (15 mins is a lifetime to that age group), especially when you know they're waiting.

@EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall

I don't think the majority of us need parenting or grandparents advice from someone who doesn't seem to know what to do without reading about it in a book or from listening to some 'expert' thanks 🤣

What should parenting wisdom be based on? The unconscious perpetuation of how you were parented? That likely goes back generations, and whose origins can be traced back to the Victorian era? I’d prefer to parent in a way that millions of communities have done and continue to do around the world, not some artificial approach which was fostered by the dramatic overhaul of society through industrialisation, capitalism and Western individualism.

Given the gravity of raising a small human I’d rather make conscious choices informed by evidence. People have spent decades studying this stuff, they most definitely are experts. I won’t blindly accept the praise-driven, rewards-based, gendered, infantilising approach that constitutes the ‘norm’ in this country. I’m doing everything in my power to avoid my children being yet another statistic in a depressing dataset of young people suffering anxiety, low self esteem, social media addiction and misogyny.

I do agree with this post, tbh. A lot of social constructs, specifically around parenting in this country are complete bollocks and designed only to benefit the machine.

So basically the little girl wanted ALL of the blocks including the ONE that your DS was happily playing with? If so then you we’re definitely not being unreasonable not to make him hand it over.

Our DGS once was playing nonstop with a white Mercedes pedal car. A father asked us if his twins could please have a go. The answer was ' Of course'. Asked DGS nicely and he vacated but watched ever moment until it was free again. DGS aged 2.5 had to learn to take turns. You were totally unreasonable and entitled. If the father hadn't have asked we would have left DGS but he was polite, non aggressive and we could see his children looking longing. There were 4 other pedal cars but that's not the point. They all coverted the white Merc.

But as pp have said, it's OK for her to hog all the bricks? If she's had the 19 of them just as long, should he still have to give his one up?

People don't have to have low expectations to disagree with you. They (we) just don't think you're right.

You can quote anything you like.

Wow OP, I bet you're really glad you asked the question on here? 🙄