Should my ds be past this by now?!

[Lethal]

Can someone tell me whether it's quite normal for a 5 1/2 year old to still find sharing with other children difficult sometimes, resulting in the odd dummy-spit? In a nutshell - ds is very friendly, sociable and good company most of the time, & he has no trouble approaching other kids to play. He's quite strong-willed though, and while the majority of the time he's pretty good at sharing, sometimes he genuinely seems to believe that he's entitled to play with whatever he wants - no matter what. He's an only child but has played with other kids regularly since he was little and he has been going to kindergarten & preschool for the past two years. So I know he should have a good understanding by now of how things work.

Yesterday we were at a friend's place, she has a ds who is nearly 18 months younger than my ds. They play quite well together most of the time except for the odd spat over toys. The thing is, ds seems to think he has as much right to this child's toys as if they were his own. Whenever he didn't get to play with the toy he wanted, he would go up to my friend and say 'He's not sharing' (about her son) & this happened enough times that it started to make me feel a bit embarrassed. Then he'd whine & complain if her son didn't hand over the toy. On the other side of the coin, if my friend's ds wanted a toy that MY ds was playing with, ds would refuse to let him have it, so it seemed to be one rule for him and another rule for the other child. And the toys didn't even belong to him! I've also seen him approach other kids in a park (playing with a ball for example) and expecting them to give him a turn with the ball, even though they are complete strangers. I've tried explaining to him MANY times that he can't automatically have what he wants/when he wants it, and that he has to share things equally with other kids. I've even disciplined him over it in the past but obviously it's taking a while for the message to get through.

He's a bit of an enigma - a lot of the time he's really lovely with a great temperament and then other times this other very 'difficult' side comes out . I'm just really wondering if it's normal to still behave like this at his age.

Sounds pretty normal to me. DS1 (nearly 7) still sometimes has issues with sharing although more of the "It's mine, I'm going to play with it" sort than with sharing other people's things IYSWIM.

My ds is 4 which is a bit younger but has problems sharing and always has done. My dd is 2 and although she doesnt always want to share she seems to understand a lot better about the principle of it. Ds was first born and i think this is where it comes from but is also very headstrong and would do like your ds and go take a ball etc off someone he didn't know just cos he wanted to play with it. No anwsers really just that you try to hide the red face and keep explaining about sharing tho if like my ds knows fully well about it.
It's also about being able to control themselves which in my experience boys tend to find quite difficult.

vhairi, it's good to hear that someone else's child sounds so similar to mine - at least I'm not alone! The common denominator seems to be male/firstborn/headstrong, doesn't it?!! My friend's ds from the other day is only 4 too but he also has quite a strong personality, which is perhaps why I always have problems with ds when they get together. Maybe ds insists more than usual on getting his own way because the other little boy doesn't back down very easily either, but I was hoping that ds being 18 months older would help him to behave a little less antagonistically about the toys... not so, it seems .

How do you deal with it when it happens vhairi? Have his teachers or anyone else commented on it? I just wonder if it's a maturity issue or whether they truly believe they are entitled to other people's possessions as well as their own - would love to find some more effective ways of dealing with this.