True, it’s probably a bit more difficult for both you and your children to teach/learn in this way but much more rewarding in the end!

I *love* this post and am very much like you with regards to parenting. I’ve got so many thoughts running around in my head with regards to experiences we’ve had with kids and sharing, but suffice it to say that I came to the conclusion that my kids don’t need to share their stuff if they don’t want to in the same way that you did.

However, if they don’t want to share a toy, they can’t flaunt it, either, and if they want to play with others without sharing it, it needs to be put away.

:D

As adults we can weigh things and make decisions to share. We do so because of the benefits we see.

Our job is to teach our kids by example and by words that sharing is good, that it has many benefits. They won’t learn that by FORCE, but by love and example.

When I give to charitable organizations, with my time or money, and I do this on a weekly basis – noone is FORCING me. It’s my own choice.

Again – sharing is good, but we won’t teach our kids to share by making them resent it.

I want to thank everyone for keeping it civil and having a spirited conversation here! I usually lose interest in comment strings when they get rude and personal, but I read every comment here!

It’s such a fine line and I totally understand what you’re saying. It’s not a good idea to teach children that it’s ok for a child to take their belongings under the guise of sharing. Nor do I believe that it is OK for children to be brought up expecting that what’s theirs is theirs and they never have to share if they do not want to.

We have some very good friends who have a different family policy to us- we are a ‘share most things household’ and they are a ‘share if you want to’ household. This translates to my daughter (3yrs) not being allowed to play with anything in her friend’s very large collection of toys! This results in the child getting aggressive if my daughter asks to play with one of HER things and my daughter leaving sad and confused. Playdates at our house are fine, as Ava has learned to share most of her toys and if there is something she does not want to share, it is not played with in front of guests. Period.

Of course it all changes and becomes age appropriate;

toddlers (in my opinion) should learn the meaning

older children should know how to but not with everything, for instance mask and snorkel (yuck!)

adults, well if it’s not obvious what is appropriate sharing practice by this point you’ve probably not made very many friends in life!

Thanks for the thought provoking post!

i do not think that children should be held to the same standards as adults, because they are not adults. they are children. but it is also a HUGE thing to me, to teach a kid to be able to say NO and not feel ‘pushed’ into saying yes, or to be a people pleaser.

i think this comes from the fact that i myself am a perpetual people pleaser, which i absolutely despise! i don’t know where i was taught it but i do NOT want my daughter to EVER feel she has to do something she does not want to, purely to keep another person happy.

this really gets me thinking, how can i teach her without having other kids around? i try to teach her with myself and daddy, her teenage aunts and her grandparents, etc, but i hope i do it right! lol we’ll see how she turns out!!!

Gee, actually my son decided on his own to share his Huffy Green Machine, his John Deere truck, his DS, even though I have made it clear he does not have to. One of these items in particular he would rather not share because it is not likley to survive a bunch of innapropriate use and rough housing but like I said in the post…he is blackmailed by his friend…if you don’t share I will never be your friend again. If any kids turns out greedy…I am sorry but I don’t see it being mine.The sharing mandate is being used as weapon or a tool to get what you want even when it doesn’t belong to you.

My son let his frind use his Huffy the other day and loaned his bike to another friend and they proceeded to crash into each other and did some damage to both vehicles. My son was distraught because he knows that these items won’t be replaced if they are mangled by misuse but yet feels helpless on how to defend himself against this sharing indoctrination.

So the lessons my son has learned about sharing from me are pretty positive I think but the lessons he is learning from other kids whose parents enforce sharing rules is not so positive. In fact he sees how they are using sharing as a tool to take advantage of him and confiscate property that isn’t theirs. He would never dream of doing that to them…no I am happy with the young man he is growing up to be despite forced sharing rules. He generously invites friends over and allows them to play with pretty much anything they want even though he doesn’t have to. He bakes cupcakes to bring to the elderly couple next door and just yesterday he asked for boxes so he could Freecycle some of his toys to kids who don’t have any….. see what you can accomplish when you model generosity instead of enforce it? That is my point really.

In my opinion, the words ‘forced’ and ‘sharing’ do not go together. Sharing is a voluntary act which you can encourage your child to do. But by taking a toy out of his/her hand and passing it to another kid, you are simply infringing on his/her space. And what have you achieved with that…?

For me the idea of sharing entails making other children feel welcome in my home, as I would expect them to do with my child in their home. In a practical sense, this means either asking my child to show the other kid what she has and thus encouraging them to peacefully ‘share’ the same toy OR by giving each child similar toys to play with.

I don’t see how this is a double-standard: I share ‘my toys’ with my guests! They can watch my tv, they can look at my photo album, they can touch my plants, they can play my guitar, etc… It does not mean that they are going to walk out of the house with any of those things, it means we enjoy the use of these objects together.

What I find important is to make children understand that things are just things. Yes, they should be good to them and treat them with respect, but ultimately they are just objects which will come and go from their lives. In 5 years, your kid is probably not going to remember his Huffy Green Machine, his John Deere truck, his DS, but the kid who felt excluded and unpleasant in your house because of lack of sharing might…

You can indeed teach children compassion, cooperation and generosity in many ways, but I don’t believe in confining these qualities only to some aspects of life. While they are children, they are simply following rules according to your categories of when they should share and when it is ok not to… but when they get older, your lessons will form the corner stones of their value system and those boundaries might take very different forms.

Gee

Parents can still teach compassion, cooperation, and generosity without manipulating their behavior. I don’t believe you teach a child share with a joyful heart by forcing them to do it when they are young.