How to teach your toddler to share

As a psychologist, former play specialist at Great Ormond Street Hospital and founder of Musical Minis, I am often asked for my views on various subjects. Recently I was asked to share my suggestions on how to teach children to share for an article for Mother and Baby Magazine . Various extracts from the article can be seen here.

As a Mum you already have an amazing array of skills to help navigate your child through the day-to-day challenges of being a toddler. One skill in particular is negotiation and it starts to come in handy as you find yourself refereeing feisty toddlers, tussling over trucks! You can help your toddler discover the joys of taking turns.

Sharing is a hot topic with mums. It’s absolutely natural for you to want your child to be able to share nicely, but it’s also natural that they simply don’t understand that they should. Sharing requires an understanding of other people’s feelings and babies and toddlers don’t have this just yet.

Psychologist and former play specialist at Great Ormond Street hospital Karen Sherr explains: “The first thing I advise is not to expect your child to share. Babies and toddlers have a strong sense of self. This doesn’t mean they are aware of themselves as individuals, rather that they are naturally self-centred and don’t realise they are separate from everyone and everything else. This means that they have no idea how their actions affect others.’

So start this journey from a place where you don’t expect your child to share. ‘Parents can be disappointed and embarrassed when their child doesn’t naturally share. But there is absolutely no reason why they should: they are simply not designed to,’ says Karen. ‘Not sharing is not a reflection of their personality, it doesn’t mean they are unkind or mean, but only that they don’t know what it is to share.’

“This is all part and parcel of their development and because sharing requires empathy it is something that is very difficult for them to understand. “This will only begin to happen tentatively between the age of two and three and won’t be fully understood until around five. You can encourage your child to learn to share and you can lead by example. The main thing is to show your child that sharing can be fun!”

“Right from the beginning we can subtly encourage the idea of sharing - or waiting for ‘our turn’ by copying and repeating sounds as baby begins to coo and talk,” says Karen. “If you repeat sounds back to your baby, they will enjoy waiting for you to speak. “Whilst this is encouraging speech, on another level you are laying the foundations for taking turns and beginning to show them that if your child does an action there might then be a small waiting period while the other person has their turn.”

Learn through baby groups. Playgroups, music classes and other gatherings are great places to help teach your toddler about sharing. “Exposing your little one to an array of toys and items that don’t belong to them is really helpful in showing your child how to share,” explains Karen.

“In a music class for example there will be instruments that are physically shared out so your child will see sharing in action. Two babies might be given one drum to bang - so they begin to understand that some things are more fun with two people. The children will also swap instruments and take turns with different ones then return them at the end. This all encourages play around sharing and helpfully gives you examples to refer back to at home. For example, you can say ‘Why don’t you swap toys now just like we do at music class?’.

A busy playgroup will almost certainly present you and your toddler with a sharing conundrum at some point. But, giving your child the opportunity to learn through play is good for them.

"You might unwittingly be giving your little one very mixed messages about sharing when it comes to food. Your child may find this very confusing. "For example, your child may offer you a bite of something they are eating and you pretend to take one. But then if your child offers food to another child, and they do take the food, your child could well be distraught when this happens. The child wasn’t expecting that and so won’t be sharing again!" says Karen.

“Later at the dinner table your child offers their mash potato to everyone and you get cross - but earlier you suggested they share their lunch, so your child thinks this makes you happy and doesn’t understand why dinner shouldn’t be shared too."

When you look at it in these terms, it’s easy to understand why your child might be confused. But there’s an easy answer: introduce a ‘sharing snack’ and call it that. "It helps if your child has this snack at roughly the same time every day," says Karen. "For example, if you always take a snack to give  after nursery, then this can be a 'sharing snack'. And if your child does share food with you, take that bite! Otherwise, the child might be shocked when someone else does."

Babies and toddlers love to smile and clap and this can always be used to help encourage the type of behaviour you'd like to see. “If you see your child taking turns nicely then be sure to tell them, clap and say ‘well done, lovely sharing’. Make a fuss, as your child will enjoy this and be encouraged to repeat the behaviour. “Also, try to use positive action talk such as ‘do this’ instead of ‘don’t do this’ and avoid saying ‘no’ too much, instead say ‘let’s try this.’” Says Karen.

If your toddler has friends coming over, get them used to the idea of sharing beforehand, perhaps even looking forward to the idea. “Before friends arrive or vice versa, chat to your child about how much fun it will be to have someone to play with,” recommends Karen. “Ask them which toys they would like to show to their friend and talk about how much their friend will enjoy playing with that toy too."

“Take time to sit together and make a pile of toys that your child is happy to share and ask them if there is anything that is very special and they would rather not share, then put this away until later, explaining that the friend might feel sad if they see it and cannot use it."

“If your baby is too young, just make sure you have lots of toys out so that sharing issues are easily solved by distracting with a different toy."

"If you are going to visit a friend, then take a couple of your child’s toys with you," recommends Karen. "And when you have friends visiting you, ask them to bring a few toys too. Explain to your child that the friend is bringing items to share as well, and this will help them feel that it is not just them who is expected to share. Doing this also makes sharing the actual activity, rather than the consequence of having somebody over to play. And this brings the opportunity to discuss what the friend might be bringing and how it is fun to be able to play with each other’s belongings."

“Share activities throughout the day, helping your child to understand that it is nice when you take turns to do something with someone else,” says Karen. “For example, if you are using a teatowel, let your child have a go. If you are hoovering, give them a turn. “There are plenty of tasks you can share. Use play too, by taking it in turns to sing a song, or do a hop as you walk along, or to talk on the telephone.”

“It’s perfectly OK for your child to have a toy that they don’t have to share,” says Karen. “You have special items that mean something to you that you wouldn’t like to pass around so why should your child have to do that? If your child has a favourite doll or soft toy it is quite understandable for them to become upset when another child takes it away. Don’t feel bad for saying ‘that’s a very special toy that is just for my child’. If you know this is an issue, have some similar soft toys at hand to swap it with.”

To read the full article, visit the Musical Minis website.