Davies spent about an hour today playing with his Leap Pad (which is a largely ignored toy tbh) and the dinosaur book. Not only did it reaffirm for both him and I how great his knowledge is on the subject it was also highly educational and I think has given him a taste for playing with it more agian – and he learnt some new stuff too.
Scarlett showed her less than desireable side today with the twins who just seemed to bring out the worst in her – she walloped Maisie and really shouted at Jack (who will become hysterical if you just look at him on occassion and is a bit of a handle with care type child who has probably never actually been shouted at before!). It’s hard because on the one hand I do not want her to become some wild child who is out of control and allowed to run free with no rules (not that I think there is much danger of that here tbh!) but I also have huge sympathy for her on some counts – the Maisie issue was because she had just been given her birthday pressie from Chris and Julie which was a teaset, had barely unwrapped and looked at it before Maisie was at it and Scarlett was being told to ‘share’ – which frankly seems a bit unfair really – the child is two, it was HER pressie and why the hell should she hand half of it over to another child before she has even looked at it properly. The Jack thing I am also inclined to be supportive of her on as she was in the middle of doing a puzzle when he wandered over and started picking up the pieces. It’s funny really, both Davies and Scarlett have no issues with sharing stuff with each other, but they also seem to have an inherant respect for the fact that it belongs to one or other of them and even Scarlett will check it’s OK with Davies before ploughing in and playing with *his* stuff. But although Davies is pretty good at sharing certain designated toys (anything which he would rather not have played with by other children is put in his bedroom before people come round to play) Scarlett really is not so keen. And I wonder how important it is really to force the issue? Clearly hitting another child and probably even shouting at them is not really acceptable but two days after making a big deal about giving her material possessions is it really right to then have them blatantly played with (and maybe in the eyes of a two year old taken away from forever) by another child. No right or wrong or answer to this one I guess, just a late night pondering. I know I can be quite possessive of ‘stuff’ and am also quite uneasy on their behalf about their things getting broken or ruined – I am quite big on them having respect for their stuff and playing with it ‘nicely’ so I am not comfortable with other children coming over and being rough with it – maybe they are picking up on this, maybe we should just not let anyone over our doorstep – miserable unsociable cow that I am 🙂
I’m beginning to suspect that if you leave them to it, they’ll share when they are ready. Small will already give toys to babies, but is quite firm that bigger children are not allowed to take whatever he is playing with. similarly, he thinks anything bigger children have is fair game…
Comment by jax — 10 December 2004 @ 12:37 am
The thing that always used to frustrate me was that I felt I had to come down on the side of the child not being shared with, iyswim. Nowadays if my kids don’t want to share something and I feel they’re not being unreasonable then I’ve changed how I deal with it, and I often ask the other child to find something else to play with. Sometimes they are being unreasonable, and then if they still refuse to share the toy gets put away, after a warning. Usually if I threaten to put something away (and they know I mean it) if they don’t sort their argument out then it’s amazing how quickly they will sort themselves out.
Not always the same with 2yos I know 😉
I agree with Jax about the being ready to share thing, and I think I also agree with your ponderings – there are certain toys that I put away if certain children come here, iyswim!
Comment by Sarah — 10 December 2004 @ 7:59 am
Yep – Ammi is a good sharer, comes with not having much of her own probably. Its a hard one though.
Our leappad is also out today! vJust when i ignored the elc 3 for 2 offer!
Comment by Merry — 10 December 2004 @ 10:25 am
Maybe it’s less about the ‘share’ issue and more about the fact they do eventually grow out of simply wanting whatever another child is playing with simply because they are playing with it thing perhaps – don’t know!
Comment by Nic — 10 December 2004 @ 6:56 pm