Comments on: Why Toddlers Won’t Share and What We Can Do

By: janet

janet — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 01:45:28 +0000

In reply to Darin. Thank you so much for sharing with me, Darin. As you can probably tell, I'm fascinated by all this stuff too. I really appreciate your kind words!

By: Darin

Darin — Tue, 22 Aug 2023 01:06:35 +0000

Hi Janet,
I’m 56 and don’t have any children (or have ever wanted any) but I have been reading your articles for a couple of hours now and I’m very impressed with the ideas you present and your responses to peoples’ concerns. The psychology is interesting to me. Like with feelings: how they come up, from where, and the reasons why; managing and processing them; and many other aspects etc. I find myself taking the child’s point of view instead of someone having to deal with kids. I think it helps in understand things about myself and the ways having toxic parents has affected me. Your insights and ideology nourish my mind and soothe my soul. (I didn’t want to sound to cold/rigid/stoic but not too hammy/smarmy/corny either. Striking a balance is hard for me. oh well… :+D )

By: janet

janet — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 19:53:05 +0000

In reply to Daniella. Yay! Thank you, I'm so glad to hear this is helpful. Yes, totally a phase he's passing through. When he feels more settled in himself, he'll be back to his old social ways.

By: Daniella

Daniella — Sat, 04 Feb 2023 10:46:17 +0000

Thank you for this article! My son, now almost 3.5, suddenly has become very possessive over his toys. We had two play dates recently, where I felt exhausted and almost embarrassed by how strongly he held onto his toys. I’m now the mom who doesn’t want to host play dates at our home for a while. This made me sad because my son never had a problem sharing when he was younger, and in fact always specifically suggested he share certain toys with his friends. (He does have a very sweet, thoughtful side to him!) Now we moved to a completely different city, I am pregnant with our second, and my husbands new job causes him to work away a lot more than he did before. I know my son is going through a lot of uncomfortable emotions with these transitions. Since we moved, he doesn’t get to play with kids that often, so I honestly thought he would be thrilled to have other kids over to connect with! Instead, he was angry they were in our home at all. This is so strange because he’s usually thrilled when anyone comes to our house (he evens tries to chat up the pizza deliver guy!) I regret to admit that I didn’t handle those play dates properly, which is why I searched for this article! Thank you so much Janet for your wisdom. Your articles have helped our family so much!!!

By: Mille Ng

Mille Ng — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 18:53:39 +0000

Love the post, very insightful. It does leads to another situation that I am lost as to what to do. Setting: it is a children’s bday party of a not so close friend, so most people big or small are stranger to me and my children. At one point while I have attention elsewhere my 18 mo has someone else’s toy in her hand and the other child was crying. I waited for a little while to see what is to happened, and my child was starring at the crying child thinking which I wish I could read mind at the time. The other child’s cry intensified. Normally I would just wait and see what is to happened. However another parent who is closer to the two children has turned to my child (sitting down) and said “Sha-re~”. My child then hold on to the toy closer to her body as I walked closer, kneeled down, and I said ‘you wanted that toy, but I can’t let you have that’ while I have 1 hand holding onto the toy firmly. My child yell/scream/arched back try to pull the toy out of my hand but have eventually let go. I put the toy on the floor while I pick up my crying child and walked away to another area to cry it out.

I am doubting my approach but given the social setting I really don’t know how else I can let my child explore with other children while trying to avoid other parents labeling my child as a brat.

By: Jeff Mcneill

Jeff Mcneill — Thu, 04 Feb 2021 09:05:09 +0000

Wow, that was a lot. Ok. I feel for these only child children who don’t get a sibling up in their face every day. Most conflict between siblings is actually possession of something physical, property, not any other kind. One study says 95%. Yes, that is huge. While it is interesting to focus on the emotions here, the idea is that the sense of justice and fairness (which is the basis of sharing and turn-taking) needs to be encouraged and developed. Certainly the feelings of the child should be validated. However, missing from the discussion above is the idea that it is good to share, it is nice to give, it is just to take turns. Yes, rules can get in the way of feelings, but they are still rules to help instill these ethical impulses. Feelings should be addressed, validated, etc., but it is very important for the children to begin to take perspectives, such as how they feel when things are taken from them. This as I mentioned in the beginning is so much more readily apparent in a house with more than one child, as they deal with this all the time. Certainly this kind of issue isn’t solved once and forall, but it is nevertheless good to get the basis of behavior change not only in emotions (the idea that being selfish is a bad emotion doesn’t really bear out, as the selfish child got what they wanted), but in our shared community behavior. That is, that the child can play with the toy when it is their turn, that the toy is not going away forever, but that they can be kind and share with others.