Is it just me or is trying to teach the nuances of sharing really tricky? My 3 1/2 year old has always been really shy, but recently started coming out of his shell which is great except we are now getting a lot more clashes over toys out and about at playgroups etc. I'm obviously trying to teach him not to snatch, to wait your turn etc. which sounds straightforward but it actually seems like such a complicated concept to teach them.
One example was at the weekend we were at a play area at a museum. A couple of older kids had made a space ship out of soft play blocks, and were using some plates at steering wheels. Part of their space ship fell over so they went to fix it and popped their plates down. My DS had his eye on the plates so went straight to grab them - I do normally say to him at playgroup that if you put a toy down to play with something else then other children can play with the original toy, so I could see why he thought it was OK. I stopped him and explained that while the other kids had put the toys down, we could see they were still playing the game that involved the plates. A bit later they finished playing their game and then he grabbed the plates, all fine. After a bit he lost interest in the plates and went to do something totally different - another little boy went to pick up the plates and DS rushed over to him shouting, "those are mine, I'm playing with them." Again, I stopped him and reminded him that he had gone to do something else, DS unsurprisingly parrots my earlier comment back to me "I was still playing a game that involved the plates." He really wasn't, but I can totally see how the nuance of all those situations is pretty hard to grasp at 3!
Another example is at a playgroup we regularly go to there is a biggish toy castle which they all love. We always encourage them to play on it together as there is plenty of room for a few children to play with it. But then you always get one of the children trying to grab a little matchbox car or something that another child is playing with and saying "but we can drive it together"!. Again seems a hard concept - sometimes sharing means everyone using at the same time, sometimes it means turn taking!
Not sure really what I want out of this - just taken me by surprise how hard it is! I have an older child to, so I don't know why it's taken me by surprise!