Has anyone besides myself ever heard the word, “Mine!” come out of the mouth of their babe and wondered how in the world their babe learned that? Do you struggle with getting your kids to learn how to share? Do those arguements about possessions always seem to break out in the backseat of your car when you are helpless to do anything about it? That happens to me too! Someone wanted to know if I’ve figured the sharing thing out yet and to tell you the truth…I don’t have all of the answers. I’m still working on that one!
Again, I am an only child so I never had to share. I have nothing to draw from for experience on this topic, but I’m in the process of trying out some logical things–we’ll see how they work. I have heard a few different perspectives on sharing and haven’t really known which way seems right so instead of picking one, I’ve done nothing. Recently the sharing issue has gotten to such a fevered pitch in our house that I’ve had to do something!
I’ve heard it said that with sharing, you should let everything in your house be for the “community good”. I’ve heard of people that don’t want to deal with it so they buy one of everything for each kid. Well, that will certainly take care of the need to share, but I would bet that those kids still find a way to argue about something. They’re kids for goodness sakes!
Well in a house full of kids, there’s got to be a middle of the road so this is the conclusion I’ve come to. Each of my children need their own personal space and things to consider to be their own. We are not able to provide our kids with their own room. They must share their room so we have made an effort to provide at least a “space” for them to call their own. For example, their bed is their own and they have a shelf above their bed to put special things on.
I also bought a set of 4 drawers. Each child has a drawer to put things they want to keep in it. Personally, I’d consider a lot of it to be junk that is in those drawers, but the agreement is that whatever is in there is theirs. It means that no matter how junky I think it is, I will respect that boundary and leave it alone. Yes, I do make them clean out their drawers every once in awhile, but for the most part I leave them alone. I do have to say that the beauty of those drawers is two-fold. They understand that if they don’t put something away in their drawer, I have permission to throw it away. Woo hoo! I love throwing stuff away! But it also works to my benefit because if for some reason I need to shove things away in a hurry, I can throw it in their drawer out of sight.
Okay, so now that I’ve established a personal space for them, what do I do about toy sharing? Legos seem to be the primary issue in our house. Legos and I have a love/hate relationship. They are great toys, but they are everywhere!!! I do my best to help them stay organized, but in a very short span of time they can explode into every crevice of our house! I’ve actually gotten so desperate before that I’ve gotten the rake out of the garage and used it to clean up the Legos that carpet the floor. I’m pretty sure I could market that product to every mom out there. “The Lego Rake”–Comes in your favorite Lego color. What do you think? Would you buy it? Ugh! I digress again…
Back to toy sharing. I gave each one of my kids a box and told them that it was their personal box. I then made sure that everyone was listening and made sure that they all understood the rules. The rules are as follows: If it was given to you personally, like for a birthday or Christmas and it is important to you, then you must keep it in the box. Whatever is in your box is yours. You are in charge of it and other people must ask your permission to use it. If you leave it out…it is free game to anyone in the house. We then had a discussion about “boundaries” and the importance of respecting those. We also had a discussion about having a good reason for saying “no” and not just because they feel like it. The last rule is that anything that is not in the box is considered a toy for all to enjoy. It’s a simple concept to me. If it’s important enough to you then make sure it’s in the box! If you don’t make the effort and someone else plays with it, then it’s your own fault! Don’t come whining to me.
So how is it going? Well, I can’t say that I’ve solved all of the toy sharing problems in the world, but so far, it’s going good. At least it’s a start. At least it makes logical sense to me. At least I’m attempting something instead of doing nothing. Thus far, it seems to be a relief to each child that they have toys they can call their own and so far they seem to be willing to respect those boundaries. Maybe, just maybe, it’s because they’ve figured out the “do unto others” rule (at least I can dream that). Oh, and yep, realistically I have had to do a little reminding, but it’s a heck of a lot better than trying to referee a match over who gets the toy.
Check back with me in a few weeks and I’ll tell you if it’s still working. I think I may have stumbled on a way to minimize the “mine!” factor in our home. Speaking of minimizing, I suppose I should emphasize that with all of these practical steps, came a lot of talking. You know…what’s the point to it, why I want them to share, how it effects how they get along with one another and how I want them to be good friends when they grow up. That’s why I teach them the foundation, the hard work, now…today. I teach them these things today so that they will know how to get along when they get older.
