Positively Parenting

By Tara Lindis

The scene before me is one encountered by mothers everywhere: my twenty-one month old son is playing with his friend, Alex, who is a year and a half older. He reaches for her toy, and she shouts, “No!” Then she demands of him, “Say please!”

Alex’s mother and I jump on the teaching opportunity of the moment – but we both have different lessons. Alex’s mother explains that she should share, that Fyo is still young and learning to talk. I watch this exchange, and think both are right, it is nice for Alex to share, but I don’t think she’s out of line asking my son to say please either (which he can say but in that toddler-ease that only my husband and I understand). But Fyo is not yet in his lessons on sharing; we are currently in his “no” phase. My husband and I have been telling him that he can say no, and we’ll respect it, but he also needs to respect other people’s no. So I am telling my son, that if Alex doesn’t want to share, she doesn’t have to; he needs to respect her no.

Shortly after this exchange, my husband and I started talking a lot about teaching about sharing. Sharing, my mother-in-law told me, like lying, manipulation and eating vegetables, is something kids learn from their parents; because they see it demonstrated that it’s just what people do they simply follow their example. I made a list in my head of where I share: my husband and I go out to lunch and order one burrito and split it between us, or that we take turns reading the same book, or that we make a loaf of zucchini bread and take half the loaf to a friend’s house, or that the first year of my son’s life (before I moved overseas) I donated a lot of breast milk to a mother whose body didn’t make enough for her formula allergic baby.

But I also have a list of things I don’t share: my laptop. My husband has his, and I have mine. It’s better this way. I’m happy to let my son play with my cosmetic case, but I don’t want to share my Mac lipstick with him so that he can use it as a crayon. My favorite pens I don’t share with anyone. Same with my husband. I don’t share him with anyone either.

One day, as my husband and I watched a parent demand of her children to share, he turned to me and said, “You know, I don’t really get this whole sharing thing. If I started going through that woman’s purse, and said, ‘You’re sharing, right?’ It’d be weird.”

He has a point. A good one in fact - simply demanding our child to share at all costs in all situations doesn’t actually serve in him in the long run, even if it is the politically correct thing to say on the playground. It doesn’t teach him about the context of a situation, of when it’s appropriate to share, or when it might not be, that sharing is nice if you have a chocolate bar, but probably a bad idea if you are taking a test.

Instead, we are branching out from our earlier discussions about saying no, that really, it is about respect. Before assuming some one is willing to share, he needs to ask and say please. I point out that some things it is inappropriate to share, like spouses, underwear, eye drops, or toothbrushes. As his dad says, it’d be weird. Yet I also explain that it is nice to share, and sharing is a gift.  I explain that when appropriate, we share because we can, that like giving gifts, it’s more fun to give, than receive, that generally everyone has more fun if everyone is included and has some, instead of none.

This may be over his head–he is still young–but this morning we played the game where we cleaned out daddy’s wallet and as he handed me each item one by one, he said, “Thank you.”

Tara Lindis has taught English Literature and Composition classes at community colleges in Denver, Colorado, and has spent the last year living in Singapore and Bali, writing, and raising her soon-to-be toddler son. She blogs at www.taralindis.com.

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