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LOL, They also USE *NO!!!* about 400 times a day.

Oft times, it’s not a matter of being in a kid friendly environment, like telling them no about touching fragile items. It’s often in relation to how they interact with other kids as far as grabbing their toys and hitting and pushing other kids.

Anything you don’t want broken should be put away. I know the old school of *teaching them to mind* and I don’t oppose that. They should learn to keep their little hands off stuff that’s not theirs. The problem is, accidents happen and better to be safe than have to deal with some valuable item getting broke because someone tripped or bumped into something. Everyone feels bad then and it’s not worth the regret.

One observation. I am a firm believer in kids learning to share, but often what I see going on is not sharing.

This situation occurred once. My son had just gone outside to play and got on the swingset. The snotty, bully girl next door comes over and says to him that he needs to get off the swing because he’s been on long enough and he needs to *share*.

Well, what’s really going on is the manipulative little brat has learned that if she went up to someone and demanded it, she’d get told no. If she turned the situation around and accused him of *not sharing*, all of a sudden, my son, who had done nothing wrong, was the bad guy. Now all the attention was on him for being *selfish* and she was the poor injured party. He was accused of something he didn’t even do and she had learned that it usually got her what she wanted. Once I figured this out, I put an end to it pretty quickly.

Now, I’ve seen this happen in church nursery a LOT. Some kid is quietly, happily playing by himself with a toy. Some kid who is bored comes along and grabs the toy from him. Naturally, the child protests. Almost without fail, some adult will come along and chastise the child who did nothing wrong for *not sharing* and the kid who took the toy is rewarded for his behavior by getting it. So in nursery, I tell the disruptors that they have a whole nursery full of toys to play with, they don’t NEED to have the one someone else is playing with instantly; they can have it when the other kid is done because they won’t keep it forever. They don’t have to have that toy right now, they’re just trying to cause trouble, so in the meantime, they need to find something else to do. The other thing I noticed, is that when some adult does give in and make the kids give up his toy, the other kid loses interest really fast. They never really wanted it in the first place.

In real life, I do not go up to someone and take what they have and say “You’ve had that car long enough. Give it to me, you need to share.”

So I started teaching my kids that if someone is doing something by themselves, they are not obligated to include anyone else. It’s a good thing to do but everyone needs some space and time to be by themselves.

It teaches sharing in a different way. It teaches that you respect others and let them have their space, just like you want to have your space. If you want to play, ask. If they say they’d rather not, move on.

This settled a LOT of the arguments my kids were having with each other because it seemed that the more I tried to teach them to share, the more manipulative and selfish they seemed to be getting. Once we established that policy, things went a lot more smoothly.

Re: Sharing

Our oldest is going through some of this as well. He has 13-month old twin siblings, and we need to remind him not to take toys away from his brother or sister. A lot. If it’s a toy he left there and abandoned, he’ll get no sympathy from us.

At the same time, we’re trying to make sure the others don’t take toys away from him, either. They don’t really understand, but the point is that our oldest sees that we’re applying the rules evenly.

That said, I won’t let a child hog a whole set of toys, either. If the oldest is playing with a set of blocks, and his sister comes over and tries to take ONE away, I’ll generally make him share it with her.