Do you expect your children to share???

[fuzzywuzzy]

I am hoping the answer to this one is yes. Although a quick poll in office and amongst friends appears to be no.

I have a friend who has five girls all about two years apart. Each child has her own toy eg, there a four lots of toy pushchairs, dolls etc.

I can't bear the thought of more plastic tat in the house. But is it inevitable, will the girls end up killing eachother if there isn't two of everything??? They are currently almost three and 1.3 but the fights are mad, I tend to put the toy being fought over away, or I distract the younger one with another toy....works at the moment.

I have two boys aged 4.5 and 1.5. When ds2 was born, we put the expectationin place that ds1 would share and we have never changed that. They have their own bedrooms with their toys in, but ds2 spends most of the time in ds1's bedroom playing with his toys. Ds1 also plays with ds2's baby toys sometimes. Anything that is too small or easily breakable is meant to be kept out of ds2's reach. Ds1 has had to learn the hard way that if he has something precious and leaves it where ds2 can reach it, tough if it gets broken. They play well together and although they do sometimes fight over something, it is short lived. Because of the difference in age, toys do belong to one or other of them, but that means little as they both play with each others things. They both have special sleepy dolls that they sleep with and god forbid anyone else touches there, but they do not have "special" things besides these. I would certainly not tolerate either of them refusing to let the other play with their toys.

However, all of that said, there are some ground rules. If ds1 wants to play with ds2's baby toys, that is fine. However, if ds2 wants to share them at the same time, ds1 muct share with him as they belong to ds2 and he is younger and less able to understand. On the other hand, if ds1 is playing with one of his own toys and does not want ds2 to share, that is also fine but he needs to play with it out of reach of ds2 so there is no squabbling.

Does any of this make sense?

I expect them to share but to respect each others things.

Might sound daft but with mine (3+ and 1+) I do picnics at home now and then to reinforce sharing.

They share toys really well and there's almost no need to intervene. I've found getting them used to sharing plates of sarnies/sliced fruit etc whilst talking about the ethos and enjoyment of sharing goes some way to help them understand it.

It does mean they share well with other chidlren too.