DD4 and DS2 - when should DD ' get ' sharing and taking turns

[sharingiscarin]

My DD has just turned 4 and her little brother is about to turn 2.

They're having trouble sharing / taking turns etc. lots of fights. They push each other, although thankfully no hitting.

Sometimes my 4 year old is kind and does let her brother have a turn with things, when he's really crying about wanting to have a go.

He does antagonise her and pushes her and she also pushes him, but her pushing him is getting less.

How do I navigate this the right way ? I try to anticipate fights, so I always get them two of the same thing / toys / food etc.

But they both have bikes for example and the little one always wants to go in his sister's bike. Sometimes she lets him and other times she doesn't let him and a fight breaks out.

I think my DD struggles with taking turns at nursery as well and I would like to support her to be able to take turns better in general- especially since she'll start reception soon.

How can I help my DD ' get it '? Or does it just take time and emotional maturity ?

I only have one DD, who is 4.

I've always prescribed to the "she doesn't have to share if it's hers" rule but I was aware that as an only she wouldn't have as many natural opportunities to learn "sharing" at home. My approach has been to ask if I can play with her toys/have a bit of her chocolate. If she says no, I accept it, if she says yes I say "that's really kind to let me play for a bit", communal things I remind her that we take turns i.e "it's mummy's/daddy's turn to pick a film today". We also vocalise ourselves taking turns between each other for less favourable things like "it's mummy's turn to make a cup of tea" and sometimes I'll say it's our turn to tidy up the toys at the end of the day so she sees that taking turns sometimes means she gets an extra 5 mins of playtime instead of tidying 😂

She goes to a gymnastics class once a week too where they have to wait turns to use the equipment, which has reinforced that part.

DD is very kind and now often offers to share (but not always which is fine), I don't know if our tactics have helped or whether it's just her nature. It must be harder with a toddler around too.

With regards to the little car/bike scenario, I think I would approach it as they each have to ask the other before using so DD asks DS can she use his little car and has to accept if he says no, that way if she is using the car and DS changes his mind you can say "DS you did say DD could use your car, let her have 1 more minute and then you can have a turn" same for the bike. It puts a time on it if they do change their mind so it takes some of the "now I want to play on it" angst away if they know they can get the item back quickly. This is what I've done when we've had friends over and it seems to diffuse the 'but it's mine' sentiment.

Why does she have to share her bike? It’s hers. He has his own. Teach him the word no instead of teaching your daughter the ridiculous “be kind” mantra. She is allowed to say no and mean it.

Try Montessori. You can play with what you like, but only when it is available. If someone else has it then it isn’t available and you cannot have it. You don’t make someone else hand it over.

Teach your daughter to say no. Teach your son boundaries.

Does she have a car? It sounds like they both have bikes but only he has a car. That's different. There's some toys of mine they share and there's others that's exclusively theirs. It's unwritten rules. But it's super hard to negotiate with a 2 year old so you're not really teaching her much at this stage with him because she's not going to get the reciprocation if that makes sense. You'd be better teaching turns with games like connect 4 or at the playground. To be clear my 4 year old didn't understand connect 4 but understood we take turns to put the stuff in.

It's a rather cruel world and personally I taught my children to be kind and considerate but sadly I'm not so sure now. They have to learn to stand up for themselves and to be resilient. I think I would do it differently now. Are you an only child? My mother was and couldn't understand my sister and I fighting as she thought we should be friends. Just a thought.

I can understand a child being less inclined to share at nursery, if they feel they don't get to enjoy their toys without giving them up at home too

Not mum-blaming! Just pointing out

This is so very true. Kids need to learn boundaries as well as sharing. So share joint and communal toys but not be able to just take toys or demand turns of toys belonging to other DC. DC need to know that some things belong to them and they have full control over them and won't be made to relinquish their toy to others. Your DD has a bike and your DS has his own bike so should not be allowed to take your DD's and crying and having a tantrum shouldn't change that. As they get older they will learn to bargain and swap turns.

What benefit to her is there is learning the lesson "be kind".

She's always going to be the oldest. She's always going to have the bigger things her brother wants a go on. When will it work the other way in her favour to make it something motivating for her to take turns with her stuff? What will she gain in return and what will she do whilst her little brother has her stuff and his stuff sits unused?

You need to teach your younger child that what's his is his and your dd that she doesn't have to give up her belongings to someone else.

With regards to sharing in general it's something they learn over time. They learn it with adult modelling to take turns. For example a shared device and they get 30 minutes each and each gets to go first on rotation.

Sharing is something often misunderstood and miss taught. For example sharing a pizza is 50/50. That's sharing. Giving your stuff to someone else is not sharing. It's putting someone else's needs and emotions above your own - something no one should learn.

With the bike, I would say she can use it but the second he wants it she has to get off. She needs to learn that it's His toy/possession and he is kind in allowing her to use it but it's his to have back when he wants. Tbh I think at 2 it's a little young to have these expectations.
I also think trying to make sure she is always kind isn't the best thing too. She doesn't have to do it always.

Sharing and taking turns are different skills. Taking turns is the one that comes easiest in my experience, but you have to practise with things that are shared property! Letting someone have a go on something that's yours is entirely different.

A good way to start talking about sharing is with food - you get a cake, for example, which you all share. But you don't have to share your own bit unless you've had enough of it.

Both your children will learn more from seeing what you model at home.

Do your children have another parent? if so, they will see how he / she models sharing with you. If the children see their other parent sharing chores and free time / fun equally with you ( being kind ) , they will model that.

There’s no point in trying to teach your children to be kind and share if they see selfishness being rewarded at home.

I have another example, where I probably got it wrong and I really do appreciate all your comments. I really don't know what I'm doing.

We had a bubble machine ( hand held ) and DD was playing with it. The bubbles were being enjoyed by DS too of course. But after a bit, he was absolutely desperate to hold it and started having quite a big tantrum about it.

I told DD to let her brother have a go. She can hold it for another 2 minutes and then her brother can hold it. So after a while I said, ok it's brother's turn now- can you please give it to him. She said ' oh ok then ' and handed it to him. I then gave her a star for being taking turns.

I was really happy. Then her brother took it and of course he never wanted to give it back.. as he's only 2. Actually he's not even two yet, he'll be two in a couple of months. He also proceeded to have a tantrum when we had to eat dinner and he didn't want to stop playing with the bubble toy.. the usual 2 year old stuff. DD then said to me that I need to give the bubble machine to him, because he's upset.

I think I need to start being careful about how I navigate this. And I also take the comment that a child who doesn't get to have their own stuff at home, is less likely to take turns at nursery etc.

I take all the comments on board and will need to be very vigilant about how to navigate it.

@Testina this is what I always taught. We also had set toys that weren’t for sharing because I have stuff I don’t want to share so why shouldn’t dc.

I had the same question. If she doesn't have her own car, then it's different than the bikes. Is there an element of "the boy gets a car" going on?

She has a car as well. They have several cars between them. But they're not the same cars.

They have too many cars tbh.. but point is, she also wants to use his stuff.

If there are set toys of their own they don't want to share, these live in their bedrooms. Any toys in the communal toyboxes downstairs/main areas of the house are free for all, whoever gets them plays with them.

I think it’s important your daughter sees that your son doesn’t get his own way because he’s younger so no x that’s your sisters bike. I do think as she’s older you need to explain things to her and say ‘he doesn’t always understand as he’s younger but we’ll help him learn’

If daughter wants to use his car you need to explain you can use it but he needs to be allowed to use your bike, it’s probably best you don’t do that as you won’t like that etc.

Yes you're absolutely right.

I don't think we've really been handling it the best way so far. I'm glad I posted.

Slightly beside the point, but what IS it with parents like this? It’s not okay for my child to meet expectations - they have to exceed them. God forbid that they should be below average at anything, even though 50% of children will always be below average by default. Because my child is MY child and I’m special.
Could this be one of the reasons we have anxious children and teens? Constant comparison to the peer group instead of comparison to the same child 6 months ago?
Maybe if parents were just happy that their kids were moving forward, rather than worrying about them being at the top of the pile at all times, we could all relax a bit.

@ChekhovsMum I could not agree more with you!!

I think my DD has come on leaps and bounds.

She was such an emotional toddler. Everything was difficult with her. Every bath time was a nightmare etc etc. transitions were a nightmare. Just getting her in from the garden was a saga as she always had a massive tantrum.

She's incredible now. She's come so far. Hardly ever has tantrums etc. listening has really improved etc etc. she's a different child, even to a year ago. That's what I focus on. Until these stupid ' reports ' that the nursery seem to think are important and don't even explain properly.

I'm just happy that she's growing and developing. She doesn't need to be at the top of everything.

My DS2 (5.5) can be a bit like this - he still struggles with sharing unfortunately though he is getting better. He is a bit behind on all social skills - he is probably closer to an average 3-4 year old socially. Luckily we are in another country so he doesn't go to school yet. I think that the root of it for him is that he does not really understand other people's behaviour, it is not predictable for him and that makes him anxious.

He also has a 2.5yo brother (DS3). Basically we operate on a policy of no, you can't just go up and demand something off your sibling, if he is playing with it first, then you can ask. But 5 is also not allowed to violently/roughly defend things either. He can say "Hey, that's mine, I don't want to share", he can offer to swap for something else or he can ask an adult for help. But most often when 2 comes and is interested in 5's stuff I try to remind 5 "I think 2 is really interested and wants to play. Can you find him a train to play with?" (or similar). This is really paying off and they will now frequently do this between themselves. We also had a policy from when DS3 was first born that if DS2 wants to do something without DS3 interfering we can find him an area that DS3 can't get to and he can play with his toy there. If he chooses to play with it in an open area, then DS3 has open access to it as well so he can't really get mad if DS3 wants to join in.

However, this is a bit harder and less necessary now the youngest is a bit older, and also 5 has fairly low frustration tolerance and can get a bit anxious about 2 getting too involved in something he is also playing with. For this we do a bit of setting up for success/controlling the environment in that if I think it's just going to be a disaster, 5 is in a particularly grumpy mood, is tired or his construction is extra fragile then I'll probably say to 2 "Let's make our own train track over here instead" and build him his own.

At other times I will sit close to 5 and just sort of be his impulse control a bit for him because this is the part he struggles with. So when DS3 is doing something that could be troublesome I say in a soothing voice "Let's just wait - I know you will use those pieces soon, but we don't need them yet do we? DS3 will probably put them down soon. Don't worry. Let's focus on this bit for now and see how we go." Or if he doesn't like what DS3 is doing but it doesn't actually impact him at all, then again I do some body contact to sort of ground him back to the moment and say "Let's wait and see what he does". DS3 is actually quite good at not wanting to borrow the bit we are literally building right now, though will sometimes go and rearrange a bit we have already built.

It's mainly about waiting. Because I can see that DS2 is looking at DS3 and instantly jumping to "Nooooooooo he's going to wreck the train track!!!" and so his instinct is to get up and snatch the toys back or push DS3 or just however he can make DS3 go away. The problem is that what actually happens in this scenario is that DS3 will get angry back and promptly hit him over the head with a train or more recently he will just turn around, grab any part of the train track and yeet it merrily into the air like an angel of chaos, which literally does wreck all of it and will then cause DS2 to fully go into attack mode. So we want to avoid this. But I find that if we get cross with DS2 and tell him off or punish him for snatching things off/hurting DS3, this doesn't actually do anything about his anxiety/fear that DS3 is going to wreck the train track (which, when he was younger was usually him accidentally sitting on/crawling on a bridge or something).

What does help with this fear/anxiety is building in lots and lots and lots of positive experiences of playing with the train track with DS3, and especially experiences where he is starting to feel anxious because he thinks DS3 is about to wreck something and I can catch him in time and help him to see no, look, DS3 is actually just driving the train. He's not doing anything wrong. Nothing bad is happening. Other people can act in unpredictable ways, and that can really be okay. It can even be fun. I think that building as many of those positive experiences for him is much much much more productive than getting cross or talking about how the bad behaviour hurts DS3.

For bigger toys that can't be shared in the same way as a train track, like a bike, they do have their own and they are supposed to ask if they want to borrow the other's and they are allowed to say no. This doesn't really come up for us with a bike because the 5yo's bike is much too big for the 2yo. It's more likely to be that DS3 will have a toy that DS2 wants and rather than wait for a turn, he will just go and snatch it off him, or DS2 has a toy DS3 wants and he is standing there asking nicely for it for ages and DS2 is just hoarding it unfairly.

So then I'll usually step in again and it used to be that I would give DS3 the toy and then bring DS2 to my lap "just to calm down and have a talk" (he is at this point writhing all over the place) but one day I hit on the idea to just look at the time and say "Let's just wait together for ten minutes. We can let DS3 have a turn for ten minutes." Currently, there is a 100% success rate of DS3 losing interest in the toy and abandoning it before the 10 minutes is up. And again, the more positive experiences DS2 has of just waiting with me for ten minutes and the fact that DS3 fairly often just gets bored of the toy and has enough of it by then, helps him to trust that waiting is not forever, that the toy isn't gone forever, that he CAN wait even though he really really really REALLY wants the thing. This then helps him (on a very good day) actually wait for himself. More often than not he needs help with waiting, or reminding that DS3 is only going to use the toy for a short amount of time. But slowly he is getting the idea that he doesn't have to hoard the toy in case DS3 runs off with it, because he really won't run off with it forever.

We are not currently doing rewards, because I think DS2 would fixate on the reward whereas it's about building him positive experiences/associations with the action itself, and so I think I would probably need to craft a reward system quite carefully (but if it's working for you then keep going! I think people - me included - can really overthink parenting methods and 100% if something is working for you and not having any unexpected downsides then keep going with it).

I'm trying to do a targeted praise thing for now so I've basically made a list of things for DH and I to notice and then we try to give specific praise when we see these actions - it is sometimes easier to notice the bad things, so making the list helps you get your brain into "quick - they're playing together and nobody is screaming, what can I notice??"

When they help each other
When they offer a toy to each other, or let each other have a turn.
When they use problem solving
When they are calm/kind/accept when the other says no
When they find their own thing to do instead of badgering the other

The plus side of doing all this is that the 2.5yo has beautiful manners and is very social - it comes more easily to him - so hopefully he won't have the same struggles (I'm sure he will have his own, though!)