Teaching a toddler to share - any strategies?

[Scirocco]

My 21 month old DC goes to nursery but has no living sibling at home. Nursery mentioned at the last parents' evening that they can struggle to share at nursery, and they recently got bitten apparently because they didn't want to share a toy.

We play lots of games which have sharing elements and they share happily with me most of the time, but it sounds like we need to work on sharing with other children a bit more!

Any advice or strategies would be greatly appreciated!

Developmentally children don't learn to share until about 3 ish. Below that age they just don't have the comprehension usually to understand sharing.

Not sure whether it will help them learn, but this book is hilarious.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Swapsies-Fiona-Roberton/dp/144493726X

Would you share your car

There's sharing and then there's an annoying kid trying to take the toy off you that you're enjoying playing with.

That's not sharing that's just some entitled DC wanting your toy.

Your DC is perfectly entitled to hang on to the toy he's playing with

The DC trying to take it off him and then biting him is most definitely in the wrong here

I'd ignore the nursery at this point. They're wrong

Yes - I was surprised the nursery said this. It’s like saying a six month old struggles with walking, or a one year old struggles with reading!

My DS is older (3 in two weeks) but still struggles. Taking turns works sometimes, especially if he knows the child’s name, so ‘DS, it’s Erie’s turn’ rather than ‘share with this little girl.’

I agree with @Summermeadowflowers turn taking is easier than sharing. You can do this with adults too, doesn’t just need to be other children.

I agree with @romdowa

I also think 'sharing' is a really big concept that doesn't come in until a lot later than that in truth.

'Taking turns' is a stage you could begin to work towards at this stage. 'DC's turn...Mum's turn....DC's turn.... Mum's turn' is something they are much likelier to begin to understand at toddler stage, and you begin by having 'your turn' for a very short period of time (you hug their favourite teddy for 1 second before they have it back for example). It is to help them learn that someone else can "borrow" something which will come back to them as opposed to "take something away from them" which is often what people mean when they say toddlers should 'share' which actually isn't fair .

Turn taking is very good at this age, something like a slide is great for teaching this (because there isn't a long waiting period which outlasts their attention span) and showing them how to play collaboratively e.g. roll a ball to each other. You could also play a lot of games where you give each other things - e.g. any time you have a bowl of crisps to share or toys which have smaller pieces like duplo. Lots of exaggerated "There you go" "Oh THANK you!!! How kind!!" nb you will be fed lots and lots of soggy food.

Just lots of encouragement, I would not enforce anything (unless e.g. you're in a public place and it's necessary!) IME at this age the more you try to take things off them, the tighter they hold on to everything. If you instead express giving things and the concept of "your turn" as something very fun and desirable, they really like that and will then reflect that by doing it.

That's a relief, thanks everyone! I thought DC was doing ok with starting to take turns and I didn't expect an under-2 to be good at sharing so I was a bit "oh, am I doing this wrong?" when the nursery said that.

I get offered a lot of soggy food. Unwanted vegetables used to be sneakily given to one of our cats but more recently they're "For Mummy!".

You’re fine, children don’t share, their parents make them 😂 it just depends on what mood said child is in as to how bad they kick off.

We always ensured our DS took turns with us. We made sure he lost at games. We made sure he didn't always go first even when picking toys to play, if it was my pick, it was my pick. You have to just make sure these things become the norm.

I'd actually be quite annoyed if nursery said that about a 21 month old who had been bitten. It's victim blaming! As others have said, it's too early for proper sharing. If possible see friends/family with similar age children, or go to a stay and play kind of thing to try turn taking with them as well. As in 'you can play with this for X more seconds then it's Little Timmy's turn. Oooo look there's a MUCH more exciting looking toy over there, let's play with that next.' Tbh I would expect nursery workers to be managing children in this manner anyway to prevent biting incidents

With my 3yo I have a chat with how the other person might want to play with it too and we could find her something else to play with and she could have it back later. I have been doing this since starting at the toddler group we have been too since at 18 months. At 18 months she was more willing to hand it over then she got more of an understanding and stopped handing the toy over and in recent months she has been doing better again. She's almost too good at share and wants to share daddy's hammer or mummy's saw. Being clear with boundaries is important. She never asks to share food or drinks as she knows she has allergies and things make her poorl. Clearly defined separations between family things and grown up things help.

I don't push it and I don't take it off her if she doesn't. Moving her to a new area helps and then she has something new to look at and she will hand over the toy and I can pass it to the other child.
A friend of mine counts down from 10 and now the other kids have twigged that this is the eah to get toys and goes up to her asking her to count so they can get a toy off her daughter!

So proud of DC today! We were at an activity and an older child grabbed a toy from them. DC indicated they were still playing with it and wanted it back. The other child's mum dealt with getting the other child to bring it back and apologise, while DC and I spoke about how taking turns can be hard. When the other child returned the toy, DC thanked them and played with it for a bit, then sought them out to give it to them for their turn once DC had finished with it!

I'm pretty certain this is still hard for adults tbh.

I ran a toddler's group once in our local church and I had to shut it down because the clergy couldn't bear to share the church toys with us. I didn't see the funny side until I had a rant to my friend and he laughed so hard he nearly fell off his chair.