Toddler ONLY wants other kids toys in park

[JC2021]

This might sound like an absolute ridiculous post, but my toddler (turns 3 in Oct) will go to the park and only want to 'play with other kids toys' and will literally say it too..

I always take a bag of toys, put them out to share with other kids in the sand.. I respect everyone is different and some might not wish to share or play and that's fine..

In terms of boundary setting of my son, I will usually first ask the parent if it is OK for him to play alongside another child and share toys or if he can swap toys for a bit.. some react well, some are not keen, again totally fine but i do find the whole playground / toy sharing etiquette mostly awkward with lots of grey areas!!!

What do other parents do as a rule of thumb?

My boy is emotional and will show he is upset if I say 'not now' or 'that child is playing with it, it's not yours'.

E.g. a boy of about 1.5yrs left his tractor in the sand, my son asked me if he could play with it, I said yes as it was left in the sand and I didn't realise who it belonged to at first - my son picked it up and his mum came over and asked for it back for her son (totally fair enough!) my son said to her 'can we take turns please?' and she said 'maybe later' and walked off..

My son was upset and I said 'he is playing with it, it's his toy, let's go on the slide' (trying to distract) but he wasn't happy and kept looking over at the boy playing with it.

In the end, I ended up leaving as he wasn't being distracted and I was getting a tad stressed.. he started sitting on the floor having a strop..

Did I not handle this too well?

What would you have done? What do you do in the park when it comes to sharing toys/other parents/permission/boundaries etc., sounds so dramatic of me! but it's the same situation keeps repeating itself - i don't see many other kids doing this!!

Thanks in advance x

Your son actually sounds quite advanced with regards his ability and understand of sharing.

Most children are still learning the art of suggesting turn taking when they start school!

So he probably doesn't understand why others are possessive of their toys.

But as far as sharing I'd encourage him to have his own set of toys. If he likes the tractors etc perhaps his need an upgrade to something he prefers?

The reason I say this is my son was a great sharer. He'd more than happily let others use his toys at the beach but sadly others weren't so forthcoming. Often meaning he was left watching everyone else play with stuff and he had nothing.
I found that when I asked for his stuff back other parents would often say "they are only sharing" when their children took others stuff but were not willing to make their children share their stuff with "well it's their stuff and their choice".

It's always such a minefield because I come from the camp of if you take toys to a public park you expect others will want to share and anything you don't want to share remains in private spaces. But of course - no one should have to share on the flip side!

I often found whenever ds got in his scooter suddenly everyone wanted to share (basically him get off and them have a go!). So I use to say "well he's just got on it for a go now. When he's finished his turn and had enough you can ask him for a turn until he wants it back"

Covered all bases

From what I remember (my DC are older now) different places had different sets of unspoken rules around sharing. It sounds to me like you may have misunderstood the unspoken rules at that particular park?

As far as I recall, etiquette with shared toys is that everyone takes turns, with each child left to naturally come to the end of their play before passing the toy onto the next child waiting. Etiquette with own toys is that they do not have to be shared but, if played with in public spaces, it may be polite to put them out of the sight of other children when not being played with.

18 months old sounds like too young to really understand sharing, and I don’t think the parent was unreasonable not to share their DC’s tractor with your DS. I do think it might have been prudent for the tractor to go in a bag or out of the way when her DC was not playing with it though.

I don't take toys to the park..,