The Age Old Question of Sharing
by Mary Ann Halloran
Recently, I was on the beach, and while sitting there, I observed so many wonderful things: the people, the children playing, the waves, sand creations, seashells, ships, and seagulls.
I found the seagulls especially interesting. When the tiniest scrap of food was dropped on the sand, about 20 seagulls immediately descended. As they all scrambled for the piece of food, I could hear the gulls, in my mind, from the movie Finding Nemo, saying, “Mine, mine, mine, mine.” It was rather humorous.
At one point, a seagull swooped down and took away a child’s toy in his beak. The little boy ran after the seagull, yelling, “Hey, you come back here and give me back my toy.” The seagull was not at all concerned and flew off with the toy into the wild blue yonder. The child was left understandably upset.
As is often the case, God’s creatures teach us about how we humans behave. When children are first learning to speak, it is not uncommon that one of the first words they learn is “mine.” Isn't it amazing how quickly that sets in?!
Raising my own children, it would happen over and over that a toy would be sitting somewhere, and no one cared about it until one of them picked it up. Now they all wanted it and would be pulling on it, yelling, “It’s mine!” Sound familiar?
How I dealt with this was what most parents try to do: teach them to share. I would make sure they all got a short turn with it. I would say “ding ding” when their time was up, and they had to hand it over kindly to the other child. Sometimes I was able to get them to play with it together, attempting to teach them that it’s more fun to play together than alone. That worked....sometimes. But from the time they were toddlers, I would work on sharing.
However, when they got older, like around 4 or 5 years old, I would let them have some ownership of things. For example, when it was one of their birthdays, and they got some gifts, those belonged to the birthday child. The other children were not allowed to just come and take it without asking permission from the child who owned it.
Think of us as adults. We wouldn't want someone to just borrow our radio, couch, car, without asking (unless there was an understanding that that is fine with you). If the person asked permission and it worked out, hopefully we could share with them.
So, too, with children. If they ask, “May I use your toy?” hopefully, all our earlier training in sharing will kick in, and the toy owner will allow it. It teaches respect on both sides because the one borrowing it has the responsibility to return it in good condition or there are consequences (like replacing it).
Now sometimes the owner will say, “No, you can't.” This response may be out of selfishness, or they may have a good reason for saying no at that time. In that case, when the borrowing child complained to me, I would just say something like, “Well, it's his or hers, and you need to respect that. Perhaps at a later time, they will let you use it.” If I notice the child never shares, then I would have a talk about it with that child.
This worked pretty well for me and my kiddos.
God bless you
Mary Ann / Mother Hen