Diary - Sharing Toys with New Friends

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 15:46:00 +0000

Aug 18th

Today we have a new family joining our playgroup, mom Marta who’s another Reggio Emilia Approach inspired early childhood educator, sweet natured 2 year old boy T, and dad Andy who brought T to the playgroup. We had some good talks about parenting and lives in Hong Kong. T is really awesome for his age, I think it really shows what a big difference being a RIE / REA parent can make!

Today’s story is an embarrassing one for a lot of parents, a child who simply won’t share! L has a hard time sharing his toys, especially with new faces and when inside our own apartment. Today, he was being very firm on not wanting to share! Not only the toys that were already in his hands, but basically anything our new friend T touches. Whenever T got a hold of a train or a car, L would stare at it and say “No!”, then he would escalate to hitting the floor with his hand, then finally throwing things. One time he threw a little train at his mom’s direction and it hit mom on her chin. T was very sensitive to these aggressive emotion, he would drop whatever he was doing and go hug his dad.

When two toddlers want the same toy, I see a lot of parents telling their kids “Sharing! Sharing!” and forcibly take the toy from the child’s hand, giving it to the other kid. I’ve always thought that was a bit ridiculous! I can almost hear the child’s mind asking “What the hell is sharing?! All I see is you taking the thing out of my hand and keep saying this word! I lose whatever is in my hand to other kids when I hear that word!”

As a parent, when my child doesn’t want to share his things with others, I feel obligated to “teach” my child to share in front of the other parent! It’s like I have to at least say something to my child! Sometimes, I wish I could just shut up and let my son deal with it himself! Since starting the playgroup with Sarah, I’ve learned to model it after her, which is to simply state the situation and the feeling involved, “Hey, it looks like the other boy would like to have a go at this train you’re playing, would you like to take turns with him?” (I wonder if we should even leave out the suggestion!) For me, my son’s answer to that question is an absolute “No!”, which makes it even more embarrassing for me, but I think I’ve to just communicate with the other parents up front, that my son is still learning to share and I’m not forcing him either way. (For a really good guide on what to do to make kids learn to share, see the link to Magda Gerba’s post below.)

The funny thing was, when it was T’s lunch time and his daddy brought out some sandwiches, L decided to offer one of his trains to T… in return for a sandwich!

Fair enough.

May I interest you in this train?…

On and related to this topic, there are a couple of articles that can help ease your anxiety when dealing with your child’s anti-social behaviors:

How Can We Help Them Learn To Share?

Hi, Bye and Thank You – Babies and Manners

Diary - Uninterrupted Play and Empathy

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 04:00:00 +0000

Aug 3rd

At the farm expo, we found out about this organization that does a lot of events to let kids reconnect with nature. Unfortunately, they don’t have an outdoor space that we can visit, what they have is a well designed indoor playroom with 4 main spaces, an open space with lots of train tracks, a mock supermarket, a huge web that spans an entire room and finally an arts & crafts room. Each room has a towering structure for kids to climb almost to the ceiling!

Sounds exciting right? Well, L didn’t even bother with the 2 rooms in the back! He was completely absorbed in the trains, playing with them on the tracks, taking them up the tower and back down, walked to the other tower in the mock supermarket and took the trains up there. Back and forth, again and again for the entire hour!

While I was sitting there watching L play, I saw other parents talked to their kids while they were playing, trying to get them to drop whatever they were playing and be interested in what the parents wanted to show them! I thought to myself, if it wasn’t for my knowledge in the Reggio Emilia Approach and reading up on the importance of uninterrupted playtime from RIE, I probably would’ve tried to talk to L to get him to check out the whole venue too! That’s my personal style of doing things, I like to explore the whole place first before deciding what to spend more time on.

While L was playing with the trains, a little baby was upset and started crying. Something amazing happened! Sarah’s younger daughter, Chi, was playing with balloons. She stopped and watched the baby cry, then she walked over and gave the baby her balloon! People around me often says “you gotta keep an eye on your babies, they have no sense of anything yet!” If that’s true , how could a 1 year old baby shows empathy?! Chi gave something she liked and was playing with to another baby! I’ve seen way too many parents forced their children to share or apologize, and these are the same people who think babies have no sense of anything. Perhaps if they would open their eyes and pay a bit more attention, they would see that babies are so much more capable!

Finally, when it was time to go, L found a doll on his way out. He picked it up and poked it in its eyes and touch its mouth. I smiled. Back at home, we were having a hard time telling L to stop poking his baby sister in her eyes! Suddenly I realized, he was just learning about eyes… by sticking his finger into one! This is a good example of why we adults always need to take a step back, don’t make any assumptions, and replicate the things they want to do so they can learn what they want to learn.

Sharing on Nick Wang

Diary - Sharing Toys with New Friends

Diary - Uninterrupted Play and Empathy