Teaching Kids to Share
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Kids should learn to share in the right situations.
Teaching kids to share is a difficult task. Sharing often does not come naturally to kids, and it requires a lot of work to help your child understand the importance of sharing and actually following through on it. However, learning to share is one of the best ways to make connections with other children and ultimately to make friends with those kids. If your child is solely focused on themselves all of the time, other kids will not want to play with them.
If you have more than one child, teaching your child to share becomes much easier. An only child doesn’t have a natural person that they must share with in their household. All of the toys, clothes, and food is often meant just for them. They get to enjoy the full attention of their parents, and they don’t have to worry about what other kids want all of the time. They’re more inclined to not want to share.
If you have an only child, then you’re going to have to make sure that you are teaching your child to share with both yourself and with other children they interact with. In order to accomplish this, you need to teach your child to share in the home. If they share in the home, they’re more inclined to share with other kids. This means that you need to make sure that when you play with your child, ask if you can play with a toy that they’re playing with. Ask them to use their blocks or other toys. When you ask to use the toy, let them know that you’ll give it back, you just want to play with it for a little bit.
You need to act similarly with food - that doesn’t mean that every meal needs to have sharing going on between plates, but rather when a snack comes out, then you should encourage them to make sure everyone gets some. A snack should be offered to everyone in the household so that it’s fair to all. If you receive gifts of food from others, make sure they understand that you’ll share the food with everyone and everyone will get some if they want some.
If you have more than one kid, sharing is more natural in how it occurs. Kids must learn to share among themselves - from food to clothes to toys to attention. Kids should be encouraged to share toys with each other. This becomes important at times like a birthday where all of the gifts are for a single child. Encourage them to share their toys that they aren’t playing with but don’t force them. Sharing of toys that aren’t their own should always happen - family toys need to be shared at all times, and if you’re not playing with it then others have the right to do so.
If you’re going to a friend’s home, any toys that are taken are meant to be shared. If they are taking a toy, then they need to understand that they need to be willing to share it with their friend to play with. If they aren’t going to, then they should leave the toy at home. If you have a friend coming over, then all of the toys they play with are open to be shared. If there’s anything that they will refuse to be shared, then they should be put away and not taken out.
Similar to toys, food that is taken to a friend’s house, or that is pulled out when a friend comes over, needs to be shared with all that are there. Sending your child with a treat but not having enough to share with that friend is inconsiderate (assuming you haven’t made some type of agreement with the other parent in advance). If there’s not enough to be shared or your child is unwilling to share, then it needs to be left at home or put away.
When at the park, sharing of the playground toys needs to happen. If your child was on something first, then let them play on it for a few minutes longer (if they want), but then teach them to take turns and share it with the other child. Spending the next 30 minutes on the same toy that other kids want to use is rude and teaches your child to only think about themselves. Food should be kept off the playground, but isn’t something that your child should be encouraged to share (although allow them to if they want to). We avoid this completely by not taking food or toys to the playground at all - the kids have this explained to them that toys and food stay in the car or else they’ll need to share it and we don’t want to lose it.
Teaching kids to share takes a lot of work, but is a critical lesson of growing up. Help your kids learn to share in their interactions with other kids and when at home with you.
