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From: whitehur@tymix.UUCP (Pamela K. Whitehurst)
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: "Mine, mine, all mine" -- help
Message-ID: <600@tymix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Dec-85 12:39:15 EST
Article-I.D.: tymix.600
Posted: Thu Dec 19 12:39:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Dec-85 06:25:02 EST
References: <32700036@hpfcla.UUCP> <363@ncr-sd.UUCP> <941@ihlpa.UUCP>
Reply-To: whitehur@tymix.UUCP (Pamela K. Whitehurst)
Organization: Tymnet Inc., Cupertino CA
Lines: 46

In article <941@ihlpa.UUCP> ibyf@ihlpa.UUCP (Scott) writes:
>> In article <32700036@hpfcla.UUCP> ajs@hpfcla.UUCP writes:
>> >Any good advice on "helping" a toddler gently through her "I own it all
>> >and you can't have it" phase?  Rational answers like "no you don't, I
>
>I only have two, fiarly close in age and the best thing I've come up with
>is when I hear them fighting over anything, I calmly walk over, take the
>object in question, walk to the garbage can (in sight of both of them) and
>deposit the offending item. ...

I'v been thinking about this for a few days and it is just getting more
complicated.  There are actually several ideas that children need to grasp.

The first is ownership. The concept of what a child owns really depends
on the parents involved.  It is my opinion that children do own things.
They have control over the things that they own. No one may take their
posessions without permission, not even siblings. There are other things
that the family owns.  Children have control over these objects while
they are playing with them.  If the family owned object can be used by
more than one person then they have to share even while they are using it.
(Nobody gets to monopolize the crayons!)

The second idea is sharing. This is actually a two sided concept.  One
person owns the object and the other wishes to use it.  Sharing is hard
to understand before children start playing together (as opposed to playing
next to each other). When children have guests they need to provide
something for them to do.  It helps to talk about this ahead of time
and actually decide which toys are going to be shared and which very
precious toys are going to be put away until after the guest leaves.
It helps even more for the child to have been a guest.  I do not
believe in forcing children to share their posessions with siblings.  
This will happen naturally if they like each other and want to play 
together.  There are enough things that they have to share, like parental 
affection and family owned posessions.


-- 

+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Disclaimer: The above opinions are my own and do not  |
|             necessarily reflect the opinions of       |
|             McDonnell Douglas Corporation.            |
+-------------------------------------------------------+

          PKW
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