Comments on: When Your 3 Year Old Grabs Toys

By: Kiera

Kiera — Sun, 26 Sep 2021 06:29:27 +0000

Try Sarah Ockwell Smith’s Gentle Parentimg group for a UK perspective.

By: Samantha Murrell

Samantha Murrell — Fri, 27 Sep 2019 07:56:59 +0000

Thank you Janet for another wonderful article. I have only recently found you and have been gobbling up all your advice and reading everything of yours that I can get my hands on! I am so excited to have found RIE! My daughter is 13 months old and is so absolutely wonderful – she is so strong willed and I love this! I want to ensure I keep this spirit in her and I know I have the tools from RIE to help me with this. But really she is the one teaching me the most every day! I am in awe of my little person!
In response to Alice, I am in the UK and am keen to know about RIE here – perhaps we can connect and share our resources to see what we can find?
Best wishes to you both xx

By: Morgan

Morgan — Thu, 26 Sep 2019 20:43:56 +0000

Thank you for this. It came at just the right time. My daughter is 1.5 and I have been trying the RIE approach for about 6 months now. I have always told her to “wait” when another child has a toy she wants and she will now make a noise if someone is using something she wants, but then looks at me and says and signs “wait”. And she patiently waits until the other child is done.
Unfortunately, we had an incident yesterday with a 3 or 4 year old that forcefully grabbed and took the toy she was using. She was, of course, very upset and crying. I tried to talk to her about her feelings, telling her “I see you’re upset that he took your toy. I would be upset too.” But since the other parent was nowhere to be found there wasn’t much I could do. I just waited with her and once he put the toy down I picked it up and gave it back to her. Not quite sure how else to handle it when it’s another parent’s child. Not sure if there was any other way to respond in that situation. It just broke my heart.

By: Juliana

Juliana — Tue, 26 Feb 2019 18:35:54 +0000

I love this note as its something I struggle with as well. I was just thinking of it actually after a very upsetting incident we had. One of the hardest things seems to be teaching my son while navigating other parents. I have been on both sides of the situation- my kid was the one taking the toy, or pushing, and my kid was the one whose toy was taken from or was hit/pushed, and they both can be hard.
Its wonderful when you are around like minded parents, and I can tell how much faster things calm down.But I have been through some rough situations where my son just looked at me so confused as to what was happening.
I started using RIE more consistently with my son after he turned 2, and had lots of big changes in his life. Things got hard for a while, he was even hitting me and others. We have made so much progress that at 2.5years he tells me how he fells, why, and what he needs to do to solve it. He even tells me that sometimes he just cant and loses control, and asks for help.
Thank you!

By: Sanna

Sanna — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 20:17:49 +0000

Great article, love everything that your write Janet. Commenting here to mainly try and get in touch with Alice. I am keen to get more RIE support going in the UK. Where abouts are you Alice? I am in Glasgow. Would love to meet other RIE parents!

By: Kylie

Kylie — Sun, 25 Sep 2016 01:08:19 +0000

Hi Janet, I’ve been following RIE on Facebook for years. Just wondering about a younger child – I have a nearly 14 month old boy who is quite gentle but does try to take toys sometimes, from children we don’t know and also friends’ children. What do you do and say with a younger child? the other parent is also usually insisting on sharing or won’t let their kid even try to take a toy from him.

By: Jennie

Jennie — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 20:14:58 +0000

Hi Beth – I’m in north east England, where are you? I’m just starting to learn about Janet’s approach and think it could be helpful to me, are you already using it?

By: Kads

Kads — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 21:29:53 +0000

Hi Janet,

Wow, this is a great article. We are currently facing this same issue and this article has helped me, thank you. I’ve only discovered your site currently and trying to apply RIE to our life. However I don’t know where to start, are you able to point me to direct me to starting point please?I have 3 years old daughter and 18 months son. We have loads of issues that we are trying to work out, such as hitting, talking back when asked to do something. I want my partner to get onboard but not having much luck.

Many thanks

By: Mary

Mary — Mon, 14 Apr 2014 04:17:44 +0000

When my daughter trie. to grab something off another child I usually say sonething like “Childs name has that toy. When he/she is finished you may have a turn” she usually accepts this and so will the other child. My daughter will wait and the other child typically gives it to her after a short period. I learnt this approach from Janet’s blg so thank you!! Dont know if my words are to the exact RIE guideline, but I find it very effective majority of the time.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 10:18:39 +0000

Hi Janet,
Your website and answers to comments have helped me so much over the past couple of years. Thank you!
My son is 2.5 now and is a quiet and thoughtful little boy. I really struggle over how to handle this situation that keeps coming up. When I take him to various playgroups (unfortunately non-RIE ones as we are in the UK) and he is playing with a toy, if another child takes his toy, he doesn’t try to get it back. This would be fine, except when I ask him if he would like to continue playing with the toy, he says yes. (This has even happened at the playground, with his own toy that is very special to him, that another older child came up and took.) I’ve talked to him about asking himself in that moment whether he would like to finish playing with the toy or whether he feels ok that the other child took it. And if he wasn’t finished with it and wants it back then he needs to tell the other child to wait his turn please and take the toy back. But if he’s ok with the child taking it then he can move onto another toy/activity.

-What do I do if the other child won’t give it back to my son even after he asks for it and tries to take it?
-Is there a better way to handle this?

I find these situations very difficult because I also don’t want to offend the other parent and child but I want to teach my son to take care of himself. (Interestingly, for myself I find it difficult to put my needs before the needs of others and I really don’t want to teach this co-dependent habit to my son.)

Any thoughts?
Thank you!
Shannon