Can you teach a child who "collects" to "share"?

[MiladyDeSummer]

DS is a collector. He'll organise, stack, line-up and arrange cups at the table in my parents house and have a great time.

But my niece who is the same age will wander up and want to join in the fun even though it isn't actually fun for her in itself, she's just wanting to socialise and interact. So we try to give her a few of the cups. Cue enraged DS and my sister making snidey remarks about my bad parenting / pandering to him etc

At the craft table DS wants access to all the feathers or all the beads or pens or whatever when there are others who actually want to create things.

And the inevitable battle with regard to the "longest line of magnetic trains" despite the autistic child next to him having the exact same plan.

"Sharing" is in DS' IEP / targets but I can't see how it will happen. We don't force NT children to "collect" so is it even appropriate?

This is a tough one, and something we are also struggling with.
DD1 (AS)won't let any of her friends come over in case they want to look at any of her books (a huge obsessions of hers, she must have hundreds).Nor will she allow dh or me to look at her books unless she is holding them.
We don't really know how to handle it, cos it causes her untold distress if we over-ride her.

Sorry, I'm not much help -but I can sympathise with you over the comments your sister makes. It's hard enough, isn't it, without additional criticism?

Dd1 struggles with sharing, she hates it when others move things. Today she has a friend over and wanted to play with her 'Go Go Hamsters', we had an hour before her friend came over so i talked through with dd1 how she should behave and what to do if her friend did something she didn't like. We use roll play. I explained to dd1 that her friend might want to move things and that she should let her (it takes a while to get it to sink in). She's now upstairs playing with her friend (so far no tears).

We never managed it spontaneously. DS can now cope with the idea of being allocated a certain amount, and others being given a similar amount. He can also trade.
But there have to be rules, so don't help yourself to his stuff without asking, and don't think it's funny to pinch something of his and run away.
The consequences are memorable.

Goblinchild

It's because of the brain design difference.

The amazing people-handling-centre in your brains is a possession-handling-centre in ours.

You think about the people you love and care for, and you are filled with emotions about them, yes? Supposing someone came up to you and snatched your baby out of the pram and ran off with them? Imagine your reaction...you'd panic, you'd imagine them dropping them, harming them, you never seeing them again?

Because we use that exact bit of the brain for our things, that's exactly how it feels to us when someone touches the things that are 'ours'. A young child or someone with profound autism can't work out enough social rules to get round this problem.

Not a solution, but an explanation. "Sharing" works for us the same way as if the friendly social worker told you that you had to "share " your baby with five other strangers equally, and would be given points for doing so.

That is an untterly brilliant explination from Amber .. And I'm with goblin.. We never sorted this out.

Ds2 collections are his, he doesn't share, end of story.
He does share toys that aren't his collection, if he remembers to not rule the game or actually plays.

With craft things it work if he has a little pot and you let him know how many he can put in the pot.. Just watch out for other children dipping into his pot

amberlight, that's why he exploded in an art lesson.
They'd been told to select resources for an individual piece, and he'd done that.
Then another 14 year old with poor survival skills and a limited sense of humour thought it would be amusing to pilfer from his stash.
The explosion came when the supply art teacher told him to sit down and stop fussing, he did (I was impressed at that) but the other pupil took One More Thing.
Boom! Krakatoa!

could you get two of the same item and say one is for sharing and one just for him/her. This is the only way i have manage to solve this regarding my inability to share. I still find it diffult to do, but can with bitten lip.

Have you tried the 'taking turns' angle? i.e set up a routine for taking turns with the cups etc.

As for craft resources you could make a routine of sharing them out.

Our ds has a tame girl cousin we use to practice these things on. Hard at first but improving.

Cross post Arsenic. Yes, beware others dipping into his pot, especially if doing it with intent to rob.

Very interesting replies, thank you.

I love "poor survival skills" and "tame cousin" too

We have big sharing issues when Dgd comes round, she is 2 so c..p at sharing Dd3 c..p at sharing end of. Told the Salt who said she would send me some stuff to help. We'll see.
Will keep watching in case anyone comes up with a miracle cure!!

With us it is dd2 (no dx but possible/probable AS, she is 3.6) who has the issue.

Dd1 has never really been bothered enough - she walks away rather than fuss, especially if the other child is loud about it.

While I can see Star's viewpoint (i wouldn't necessarily make either of mine give up a ride on toy immediately another child clapped eyes on it, for eg, but I would float the idea of taking turns and then distract mine away after a while) we have had to tackle dd2's sharing issue, otherwise dd1 doesn't get to do anything at all - dd2 shrieks, dd1 drops it and retreats, dd2 picks up whatever it was, lines it up somewhere, then goes back to watching cbeebies or whatever.

We take the turn taking line, so once dd2 has finished lining up/tidings away, it is dd1's turn to do something with it all. Or split the toys so they have a similar amount each where possible (eg with toy food/pots in the kitchen, bricks, cars etc). There are both good at turn taking, so this mostly works for us, if dd2 isn't too stroppy about it.

I have also started channelling my mother and am not above shouting stating firmly "if you can't play nicely I'll take it away" but can't really use that for obsession items as not fair.

Thanks for the insight, Amber - that's exactly what I saw this morning at nursery with DS, a big box of cars and 3 other children.
There are times when DS is 'naughty', but on this I can see that he is anxious about what will happen to the cars with all those other kids there. He's actually quite good at turn-taking now, but unstructured sharing is a different thing
I can also see Star's point, but thing is, we know to share when it's socially expedient, or we know how to frame our not sharing in a socially acceptable way. You'd share your house if you had unexpected guests, wouldn't you? In other words, there is actually a (socially acceptable in an NT world) answer you could give to the question of why you don't share your phone.
Solutions? I guess we'll have to work on the anxiety as well as the behaviour. I'll try social stories

I have problems with the sharing thing too and the assumption that it is always a good thing and something that all children must do.

I remember when my children were 3 and 4 and both had new note pads for their holiday to draw in. Despite there being other paper around, cousin (age 4) wanted to draw in dd's pad. Granny ripped some pages out for her. Dd was inconsolable and granny critcised me for pandering to her. I still think Granny was wrong. It was dd's and she ruined it - a few pages may have been trivial to her, but she should have judged it by dd's standards not her own.

My children have things which are important to them and which quite frankly they do not have to share. I don't share some of my stuff with people so why should they.

They are 5 and 7 now and we have a rule - if they don't want other people to play with it, they put it away before they arrive. If its left out or downstairs, its fair game for anyone. They must ensure that visiting children have enough to play with and imagine what they would like if they were at the other child's house. They are however allowed to say "I'm sorry, that is my special thing and I don't like other people playing with it. Would you like to play with XYZ".

If they refuse to let another child play with anything, then that is treated as unfair and the other child can choose whatever they like. This makes the dcs think carefully about what they treat as "special" and the choices they now make are very sensible.

I have to say that I find the insistance of other parents that another child should be allowed to break the lego bridge which ds as spent 2 hours making just because he is 3 and ds should share - as irritating as they may find lack of sharing.

Should have said, that ds, is being assessed for ASD but has picked up this skill quite well as long as he knows very clearly how it applies.