Does your child share his toys with his friends or his siblings? Heres how to inculcate a spirit of generosity in your child. As 3-year-old Tarun plays with his toy train, 1-year-old Kabir, his younger brother, also wants to have a go. He heads straight for the train and Tarun, anticipating his move, reaches out and grabs it. A struggle ensues and Tarun, being bigger and stronger, naturally wins the battle. Kabir goes crying to mommy, and mommy looks disapprovingly at Tarun. "He is your younger brother Tarun, give him your train." Tarun doesnt heed your words, so you forcibly take the train away, shout at Tarun, punish him or let him know your disapproval in no uncertain terms. If you punish your child or take the toy away forcibly, your child will only resent the action. By taking this course of action you may be forcing your child to obey you or pay the consequences, but you are not instilling a spirit of generosity in him. Imagine if a colleague comes up to you and wants that new silver and chrome lamp on your desk. You dont want to part with it, he complains to the boss, and the boss comes up, picks up the lamp from your desk and hands it over to your colleague. Your colleague runs off gleefully with his prize, and your boss looks you over disapprovingly, telling you that you should be more accommodating towards the new recruits. Not only will you get frustrated, but you will immediately start resenting your colleague. In the same manner, forcing an older child to give up his toy to his younger sibling sows the seed for sibling rivalry, and is also unfair to the older child. There is no reason he should have to part with something that belongs to him just because his younger brother wants it. When parents have two children, they often expect the older child to give in to the demands of the younger one, which is unfair when you think about the fact that your older child too is just a small kid. It is important to realize that at this very young age children are not developmentally ready to share. True, some more generous children will not have a problem sharing their chocolates with their siblings or best friends, but most other children are far more possessive about their belongings. This is the age when children start appreciating and developing a liking towards certain objects, and they also understand that it is far too easy to have these objects taken away from them. A part of the reason children dont part with their possessions is because they feel they dont have control over them. The minute your child knows that his toys belong to him, and he can get them back at any time from his brother, he will be more willing to part with them. It is always a good idea to play give and take games with your child. If your child is possessive about a particular toy, gently request her if you can take it from her for a minute. When she gives it to you, you can hug it, hug her, play with the toy, give it a kiss anything random, and then return the toy to her. Make sure you return the toy to her in a few seconds, so she will not mind parting with it again. Keep passing her toy back and forth. In this manner she will see for herself that just because she is letting you have the toy for a little while, it does not mean that she is losing the toy. She will also learn that she can have fun even when she shares her toys.
Does your child share his toys with his friends or his siblings? Here's how to inculcate a spirit of generosity in your child.
As 3-year-old Tarun plays with his toy train, 1-year-old Kabir, his younger brother, also wants to have a go. He heads straight for the train and Tarun, anticipating his move, reaches out and grabs it. A struggle ensues and Tarun, being bigger and stronger, naturally wins the battle. Kabir goes crying to mommy, and mommy looks disapprovingly at Tarun. "He is your younger brother Tarun, give him your train." Tarun doesn't heed your words, so you forcibly take the train away, shout at Tarun, punish him or let him know your disapproval in no uncertain terms. If you punish your child or take the toy away forcibly, your child will only resent the action. By taking this course of action you may be forcing your child to obey you or pay the consequences, but you are not instilling a spirit of generosity in him. Imagine if a colleague comes up to you and wants that new silver and chrome lamp on your desk. You don't want to part with it, he complains to the boss, and the boss comes up, picks up the lamp from your desk and hands it over to your colleague. Your colleague runs off gleefully with his prize, and your boss looks you over disapprovingly, telling you that you should be more accommodating towards the new recruits. Not only will you get frustrated, but you will immediately start resenting your colleague. In the same manner, forcing an older child to give up his toy to his younger sibling sows the seed for sibling rivalry, and is also unfair to the older child. There is no reason he should have to part with something that belongs to him just because his younger brother wants it. When parents have two children, they often expect the older child to give in to the demands of the younger one, which is unfair when you think about the fact that your older child too is just a small kid. It is important to realize that at this very young age children are not developmentally ready to share. True, some more generous children will not have a problem sharing their chocolates with their siblings or best friends, but most other children are far more possessive about their belongings. This is the age when children start appreciating and developing a liking towards certain objects, and they also understand that it is far too easy to have these objects taken away from them. A part of the reason children don't part with their possessions is because they feel they don't have control over them. The minute your child knows that his toys belong to him, and he can get them back at any time from his brother, he will be more willing to part with them. It is always a good idea to play give and take games with your child. If your child is possessive about a particular toy, gently request her if you can take it from her for a minute. When she gives it to you, you can hug it, hug her, play with the toy, give it a kiss anything random, and then return the toy to her. Make sure you return the toy to her in a few seconds, so she will not mind parting with it again. Keep passing her toy back and forth. In this manner she will see for herself that just because she is letting you have the toy for a little while, it does not mean that she is losing the toy. She will also learn that she can have fun even when she shares her toys.
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Very good tips to make children share their toys with siblings and friends. I will surely teach all these techniques to my kid. So that he can share his chocolates, snacks and other small things with her classmates at Orchids International School.
I'm a new teacher and I have two children in my classroom who doesn't like sharing. Whenever a class activity is going on, they try to hide behind classmates so they don't have to share whatever it is they are using. I have tried making the activities more fun, I have also tried placing the class into gender groups and still nothing. Can anyone give me insight of what I should try next?
this article is written very well and will help lot of parents to understand their growing kids in teaching them to share the toys instead of scolding and punishing that kid to sacrifice the toy.
to sonu -
i am writting this in connection to sonu's previous message about " older children taking away toys from younger ones" -
look sonu older children are fairly understanding - they understand what you talk or say to them - in this case you can convience him / her by giving something else of his interest and make him agree to part with the toy to the yonger one.
good article, indeed. if anything, i would raise the younger child`s interest in a different toy and say that the older sibling will share his toy when he is done playing. same vice versa. if the older child takes away the toy from the younger, i would ask him to wait until the younger one is done playing. at one time i was having a picnic with my toddler son. he brought all his toy cars because he wanted some one-on-one play time with me. a boy of the adjacent family suddenly jumped right on our blanket and started playing with the cars. my son became very protective of his toys only to hear the boys mom yeelling "typical only child, does not know how to share". i still think that was unfair because if the toys belong to nobody, everyone should take turns but if they are my son`s own, it is up to him when he is ready to share. i only encouraged my son to let the boy know when he was welcome to join the game.
this is an interesting article. my 3 year old has a difficult time sharing with younger children. it's more the other parents who do not understand that frustrate me. i can't wait until their children are 3!
your article on sharing is wonderful! i also wrote a poetry book for children on difficulties of sharing, which is coming out on summer 2006 - this book was inspired by watching many kids at play and is based on animal characters teaching a little girl how to share - if the animal kingdom shares with humans there is defenitely hope for humans to share amongst themselves.
when we learn to share our toys we will grow up to share those most important possessions with those most in need!
