From: lauraf@spike.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Laura Floom)
Subject: Re: Thanks + Question re: Sharing between one-year-olds (LONG)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Distribution: usa
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1992 22:28:56 GMT

In article <14hsdrINNjob@smaug.West.Sun.COM> zoe@cypress.West.Sun.COM (Zoe Friedlander) writes:

[description deleted]
>
>To me, this kind of interaction seems fine; I feel like I've seen 
>that Isaiah doesn't really care that much if Aaron takes a toy away,
>and when he does care, he makes his feelings known.  (If Isaiah really
>wants the toy but Aaron gets it away and Isaiah fusses, we do give it
>back to him.) The problem as I see it is that my sister doesn't think
>this is okay.  She thinks that neither of the boys should be permitted
>to take toys from each other; that we should intervene all the time,
>and this morning she told the babysitter that she should intervene too.
>
>When I intervene and take a toy from Aaron that he took from Isaiah and
>I return it to Isaiah, Aaron cries quite a bit and soon tries to take
>the toy again, whereas (as I said above) if Isaiah defends the toy 
>himself, Aaron goes on to something else.
>
>There must be tons of net.experience out there in dealing with this 
>kind of thing.  What do you do?

Last year jeffrey and I attended a Parent/Toddler class. Jeffrey was one of the
older kids, and definitely the most agressive. He was taking toys away from the
other kids, which put me in a hard position. One of the other parents was particularly
hostile about it, so I decided to ask the teacher what to do about it. The subject
ended up taking up the entire discussion time.

The teacher felt that the parents should intervene as little as possible. She said
that kids have a way of communicating that we are not aware of, and if a child takes
a toy away from another child, and the first child does not object then there is
no problem. The first child was ready to give it up. If the child objects, watch for
a second and see if they settle it. Possibly the child will take it back, or decide it
isnt worth worrying about. If a fight ensues or the first child is really upset, then
it is necessary to interfer. Try to get the child in possesion to give back the toy,
or try and get the other child to accept something else. Ont thing that is not a
good idea is to take the toy from the one child and return it to the other child. This
is similar to hitting a child that hit someone else. Bad modeling. 

If a child is going around the room automatically taking away everyones toys away, then
that child needs to be dealt with in some way, perhaps removing them removing them
from the environment for a while.

Another thing we discussed in this session was the idea that our culture tends to
always defer to the other person. If two adults were both reaching for something at
the same time, manners dictate that both people offer it to the other person, which
of course can be awkward. We tend to do the same with our kids. That is, we feel
awkward when our child is in possesion of something that another child wants. It is
important that we dont always  try and get our young kids to give up something just
because another child wants it. While it is important to learn to share, it must
come from the child (with guidance from us). It shouldnt always be forced upon a child
that they must give up something they are enjoying, to ease our discomfort. It isnt
a good idea for a child to feel like their parents are always favoring the other
child when there is a conflict.

BTW, Jeffrey soon outgrew that stage. Later one of the younger kids in the class took
to followning Jeffrey around everywhere. He wanted to do whatever Jeffrey did, and
play with whatever Jeffrey had. When the other boy tried to take Jeffrey's toy away,
Jeffrey would hang on to it, or give it up, as the case may be, but he never resorted
to any violence or fussing. I think, in part, was due to the modeling that we had 
done when he was going thru the same stage. He didnt even get violent, when the other
boy did (biting, hitting, etc). 

Laura Floom

Organization: Administrative Systems, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA