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Teaching Toddlers to Share is Overrated...

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IsabellaLinton
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30 Sep 2024, 1:43 pm

Devoted wrote:
IsabellaLinton wrote:
I didn't teach my kids to share.
I didn't even know it was a thing.

They turned out just fine, full of empathy and giving to others.
I guess they got it intuitively.


I think most folks don't explicitly teach their kids a lot of things; kids can be very good at observing, absorbing, and applying different social skills. Some kids are just naturally good at sharing... That's a blessing for sure! :heart:


Just to clarify I do know it’s a developmental stage for children to be egocentric and grow out of it through empathy. :lol: I don’t want anyone to think I was a clueless or uneducated parent. It’s just that I didn’t know I needed to model or teach it by forcing them to share. They learned on their own when it was appropriate and didn’t need direct instruction from me. In fact toddlerhood was a pretty easy stage imo.

At the daycare they attended as toddlers each child got a small square of carpet to sit on from a carpet shop, and whatever toys they had on their carpet were their own. In group play they shared communal toys. Maybe that’s why I never needed to step in. None of them were ever selfish about their toys and they’ve always had a lot of empathy without being bullied as pushovers, either.


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Devoted
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30 Sep 2024, 2:57 pm

bsickler wrote:
There is definitely a major concern among NTs that kids are not socializing “correctly”, and that sharing (again, “correctly”) is a big part of that.

[....]

NTs do not understand that there are different ways to learn the same thing. If you do not do something the established “correct” way, at the “correct” time, in the “correct” place, that makes you “wrong”, even if what you are doing is right.


Seriously! I frequently tell my kids, "If there are 8 billion people on the planet, then there are 9 billion ways to raise children." I also tell other moms (who ask), "I didn't start off with *any* confidence in what I was doing. And the more kids I have, the more I realize I 'know' nothing. Every single person is different; I can only 'know' my own children and our own family. No one 'out there' is an expert. There are too many variables."

bsickler wrote:
I think parenthood in general has been over-professionalized. There is way too much credentialism going on, which has led to NTs adopting this rigid “one-true-way”-ism that has become taboo to ignore or deviate from.


Strongly agree. Very, very strongly agree.

IsabellaLinton wrote:
I don’t want anyone to think I was a clueless or uneducated parent. It’s just that I didn’t know I needed to model or teach it by forcing them to share. They learned on their own when it was appropriate and didn’t need direct instruction from me. In fact toddlerhood was a pretty easy stage imo.


It never even crossed my mind that you were clueless! It's been my observation that sometimes, people are just blessed/get lucky with various kid-related things. I've had my share of things like that, and I don't believe myself ignorant (or particularly awesome) because if them. lol