23（英） How to encourage your child to enjoy sharing

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本课程是中英双语授课，您可以点击“专辑--节目”选择中文或英文课程进行收听，英文课程由玛丽·尼尔森本人讲述，对应中文内容是由中国的正面管教导师甄颖完成。谢谢您的订阅，希望您能有所收获。

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Hello, Ximalaya’s subscribers. This is Mary Nelsen.And today we are going to be talking about cooperation and how to encourageyour child to enjoy sharing. Sharing is not an inborn trait. It's learned overtime and with child development.  Sometimesparents expect their child to share before it’s developmentally appropriate.And I know a lot of adults that don't like to share. Children have difficultysharing, especially young children. So it's important to remember that this isa normal part of their developmental process. Knowing and accepting this is thefirst step in helping your child grow up to be a generous person.

Ifthere's more than one child in the house, there will probably be fights aboutsharing. This is natural, and it doesn't mean the parent should ignore it. Toooften the parents’ solutions are to tell their child, you should share yourtoys, or no one will like you, or how can you be so selfish. This is going togive your child a negative feeling, an emotion, and it's not gonna beencouraging them to do better behavior or to have better behavior. So that'swhy it's important to separate the child from the behavior and to make surethat the message of love gets through. I'm going to talk to you about how toteach your child to share with simple steps, ten simple steps while using positivediscipline tools.

Numberone, selfishness comes before sharing. The power to possess is a natural partof the child's growing awareness. During the second and third years, as thechild gets from one nest to separateness, this little person works to establishan identity separate from mother. I do it myself and mine. My do it screams theheadlines in the  toddlers’ tabloid. Infact, mine is one of the earliest words that came out of my firstborn son’smouth or my do it. It was his and he wanted to do it. The growing childdevelops attachments of things as well as persons. This ability to form strongattachments is important to being an emotionally healthy person as well. Theone year old has difficulty to sharing her mommy. The two year old hasdifficulty sharing her teddy bear. Some children get so attached to a toy thatthe raggedy old doll becomes a part of the child's self. It's part of theiridentity. And if you were to ask them to draw a picture of themselves, the fouryear old would actually include the picture with her raggedy doll as if it's apart of her body. So can you imagine convincing her to share that doll withanother playmate? It was too important. She could not feel safe and secure ifthat doll was being handled by another.

Numbertwo, when to expect a child to share? True sharing implies empathy. The abilityto get into another’s mind and see things from their view point, children areseldom capable of true empathy under the age of six. So prior to that, theyshare because you condition them to do so. Don't expect a child less than twoand a half to easily accept sharing. Children under two are into parallel play,playing alongside another child, but not with them. They care about themselvesand their possessions, and they do not think that what the other child wants, theydon't think about what the other child wants or feels. But giving guidance andsupport and encouragement, the selfish two year old can become a generous threeor four year old. As children begin to play with each other and cooperate intheir play, they begin to see and experience the value of sharing.

Numberthree, Don't force a child to share. Instead, create attitudes in anenvironment that encourage your child to want to share. There is power inpossession. To you, they're only toys. To a child they’re a valuable prizecollection that has taken years for them to ensembles or for them toappreciate. And they have built that attachment. So respect the normalpossessiveness of children while you encourage and model sharing yourself. Thenwatch how your child operates in a group play setting. You'll learn a lot aboutyour child and what kind of guidance he or she will need. If your child isalways the grabber, she'll learn that others won't wanna play with her. Ifshe's always the victim, she needs to learn that the power of saying no. In thepreschool years, your child naturally goes through a what's in it for me stage,which will progress into a more socially aware what's in it for us stage. Graduallywith a little help from parents, children can learn that life runs moresmoothly when they share.

 Number four. Get connected. Achild gives as he's given to. I have experienced the children who have hadpositive discipline parenting during the first two years are more likely tobecome sharing children in the years to come for two reasons. Children who havebeen on the receiving end of generosity and respect follow the model they havebeen given and become more generous and respectful to other people themselves.Also, a child who feels good or encouraged is more likely to share and offerthat same feeling to another child. A child parented with positive disciplineis more likely to have that secure self image.

Numberfive, model generosity when you teach your child to share. Monkey see monkey do.If big monkey shares, so a little monkey. When someone asked to borrow one ofyour toys, make this a teachable moment, mommy sharing her cookbook with herfriend, let your sharing shine. Share with your children. Want some of mypopcorn? Come sit with us. We'll make room for you. If you have severalchildren, especially if they are close in age, there will be times when thereisn't enough of you to go around. Two children can't have one hundred percentof one mommy or one daddy all the time. So do the best you can to divide yourtime fairly. No fair may be the single most frequently repeated complaint ofany child. Try to be an equal opportunity parent as much as possible whileteaching your children that other factors come into play in day to day life.

Number six, play games, for example, you canplay share daddy, placing the two year old on one knee and the four year old onthe other, teaches both children to share their special person, even a two yearold can share your wealth and give that two year old some flowers, crackers,blocks or toys and ask her to share them with everyone in the room, can win abig brother, give one to daddy. You may wanna convey the message that sharing isnormal way of life and sharing spreads joy. You'll experience it through theireyes. And you can see that they feel that sense of belonging and thecontribution. But they need to feel that through their experience. A good wayto model principles to a young child is through play. Games hold a child'sattention, allowing lessons to sink in the spirit of fun. Children are morelikely remember what they learn through the play than when they heard itthrough your lectures. So consider the character traits that are fosteredduring simple games, humor, fairness, honesty, generosity, concentration,flexibility, cooperation to rules, and then overall sensitivity.

Numberseven, when do you step in? While we don't expect toddlers to be able to share,we use every opportunity we can to encourage taking turns. Teach your child hadcommunicate her needs to her friends. Say something like when Catherine is alldone with the car, then you can write it, ask her when she will be done or holdout your hand and wait! She'll give you her doll when she's ready. When a toyquarrel begins, because it will, sometimes it's wise not to rush in andintervene. I know it's tempting. You wanna rescue, you wanna problem solve andfix a situation immediately. But this is not allowing your children to have thenatural experiences and outcomes of not sharing or not taking turns. You wantthem to be able to have that experience and what it feels like. So give yourchildren time and space to work it out among themselves. Stay on the sidelinesand observe the struggle. If the group dynamics are going in the rightdirection, and the children seem to be working the problem out amongstthemselves, stay as a bystander. If the situation is deteriorating, intervene. Selfdirected learning with or without a little help from caregivers has the mostlasting value.

Numbereight, time sharing. Using a timer can help your referee lots of toyssquabbles. If Johnnie and Jimmie are having trouble sharing the toy, you cansimply intervene by asking each one to choose a number. And then the one whochooses the number closest to what you thought of gets the toy first, then havethem set the timer. You could offer them a choice and say, would you like oneminute or two minutes? And if they say two or they don't agree, say let's comeup with a number that you can both agree on. And then have one of them push thetimer or take turns pushing the timer to go. Two minutes is about the right agefor younger children. You can ask the older ones to wait longer. When the timergoes off, the toy goes to the second child for the same amount of time, thoughhe has probably forgotten that he wanted it. At this point, you may have tosell the children on the plan with an animated, simple explanation, walked himthrough a cycle, starting with the older one or the one that's more likely tocooperate.

Forexample, Johnny has a toy for two minutes, the buzzer goes off. Then you canask Johnny to give the toy to Jimmy. If Johnny is not willing to at that time,you could say you can hand him the toy or I will hand him the toy. You decide. Addingthat you decide really empowers the child and gives them that encouragement andthe power that they need. But a power that they can use in a useful way, youdecide. It may take several cycles before a child can learn to hand over thetoy on his or her own, and smiling because she knows she will get it back.

Thisis where you have to be patient and know that each of these opportunities is ateachable moment. And it feels like a challenge. But it actually is anopportunity. A family in my practice who uses their timer method told me thatit works so well that the older sibling runs out to her mother saying, mom, setthe timer, Susie won't share! External and internal timers really help childrento learn the valuable lessons for later in life, like how to take turns and ofcourse delayed gratification. So if the timer method doesn't work, time out thetoy, put it on the shelf, and explain that the toy that they aren't willing toshare is going to sit on the shelf until they can come up with a plan for howto share it. And the children may pout for a while as the toys sit upon use,but sooner or later, the realization hits, and they realize that they need toproblem solve and figure out a solution. They'll learn to compromise andcommunicate, and then of course, cooperate so that everyone ends up winning. Wewant it to be a win-win situation, another positive discipline tool.

Numbernine, plan ahead. If your child has trouble sharing his toys and a playmate’scoming over, ask the playmate’s parent to send toys along. Kids cannot resisttoys that are new to them. Soon your child will realize that he must share histoys in order to get his hands on his playmate’s toys. Or if you're bringingyour sharing child to this home of a non-sharing child, bring toys along. Somechildren develop a sense of justice and fairness at a very young age. One of mychildren didn't want to return to a friend's house because he didn't share. Wemade this a teachable moment and acknowledge that the strength and the skillsthat it took for him to share and to communicate how to go about that. And Iwould even acknowledge him and give him some positive encouragement by saying,are you glad that you like to share? And then to really listen to how it makeshim feel and ask him why he likes to share. And then to even give him morepositive feedback by saying, I bet kids like to come to your house because ofhow you play with them and your willingness to share and take turns.

Ten,protect your child's interests as you teach your child to share. If your childclings to his precious possessions, respect this attachment while stillteaching him to be generous. It's normal for a child to be selfish with sometoys, and then more generous with others. Guard the prize toy, pick it up fromthe other child who tried to snatch it and redirect them and give them anothertoy. You can be the scapegoat. Ease your child into sharing before playingbegins, help your child choose which toys he would like to share with hisfriend and which ones he wants to put away and reserve for himself. You mayhave to play referee. This is Susie’s special birthday toy. You may play withthe other ones until she's ready to share. And then you respect the ownership.Your child will feel very encouraged and validated to have you intervene. Andthat's only when absolutely necessary. The larger the family, the morenecessary it is to arrive at a balance between respecting ownership andteaching sharing. Point out that's your brother's toy. But this one belongs tothe whole family, and of course, encourage trading. Children easily learn the conceptof family toys such as television, which everyone gets to share.

Sothank you again for taking the time to listen and to learn encouraging positivediscipline tools to help your children learn those valuable life skills andcharacteristics that you want them to have. And you get to experience the joyof parenting. Our next lesson will be about your child having a healthy selfesteem and what to do when your child is laughed at? I look forward to speakingto each and every one of you real soon. Take care and bye bye.