Here's a good tip for helping kids to share community toys (toys that belong to the family as a whole) nicely. If child "A" has something child "B" wants, train child "B" to ask child "A", "when may I have a turn with that?" By asking the question "when", not just "can I play with it" or "give me that..." it makes the assumption that child "A" will share it sometime, but also gives that child a chance to give it up in a determined amount of time instead of feeling like they have to give it up immediately.
We often have a typical amount of time that is fair for most turns (often 3 or 5 min depending on what the activity is).If the kids are old enough, they can set a timer themselves. If they are younger, they will have me set a timer. I weare a sports watch around that has a count-down timer on it so it's easy for me to set the timer for them.
I often find when we do this, that child "A" will give up the toy before the timer even goes off. Sometimes they don't really even want the toy that long, but if they feel like they "have to" give a toy up at any instant, they'll fight against that, but when given a chance to determine a length of time, they will often give it up willingly sooner! Anyways, this helps us out quite a bit with "community toys"! |
