The Connected Parent: Learning to Share

Q. Lately my almost three year old son has become very territorial and possessive and unwilling to share things with other children – even things that belong to the other children! Help! What do I do to help him learn to share?

A. When children aren’t able to share, it’s usually for one of two reasons. Either they haven’t got a solid sense of connection at the moment, or something has happened to remind them of hurtful feelings they haven’t yet finished making sense of.
When children don’t feel connected, they can’t share.

To a child, a sense of connection is like a tightrope walker’s long pole–feeling close to someone keeps a child in balance, so he can do challenging things with grace and confidence. If he can’t constantly refresh a close bond, a child will probably be too tense to share, too unsure of his own safety to take turns. When a child’s behavior becomes brittle, any little disappointment brings up lots of tears or tantrums about wanting something badly. The child aches to be brought close, but he focuses on needing something material instead.

To a child, a sense of connection is like a tightrope walker’s long pole–feeling close to someone keeps a child in balance, so he can do challenging things with grace and confidence. If he can’t constantly refresh a close bond, a child will probably be too tense to share, too unsure of his own safety to take turns. When a child’s behavior becomes brittle, any little disappointment brings up lots of tears or tantrums about wanting something badly. The child aches to be brought close, but he focuses on needing something material instead.Connection is what children really want and need.

Sharing goes hand in glove with being relaxed and feeling loved. Children have a few vital needs, and when these needs are filled, they can relax. They feel secure enough to play flexibly and respond thoughtfully to the needs and wishes of others. Parents’ love, warmth, food, and safety - these are the child’s most basic needs.
But in order to relax and thrive, children need a few more vital things. My list of what a child needs to thrive goes something like this:

• The daily opportunity to connect and be relaxed with someone who cares
• Emotional warmth and welcome
• Respect for his intelligence
• Time for play
• Lots of affection
• Frequent opportunities to laugh together with others
• Frequent opportunity to cry in the shelter of someone’s arms when hurt feelings arise
• Information about what is happening and why
• Limits enforced without harshness in a way that promote safety and respect
Children always signal when they need connection.

Once in awhile, children can ask directly for the closeness that will help them. They run to Daddy and cling to his leg, or they beg to sit in Mommy’s lap. But children often use signals that are less direct. A child will let a parent know he’s running on empty by wanting only what someone else has, or by wanting all of something–all of the blocks, all of the crackers, or all of the long park bench. And sometimes, children will passionately want something that is clearly off limits. If you are a parent with a child who tends to signal you in one of these ways, rest assured that there’s nothing wrong with your child! He’s communicating well. He’s saying, “I need your help!”
“Sharing” is two skills: the ability to give, and the ability to wait.
Children love to be generous. It’s in their nature to give things to others. They love to delight those around them. When they can’t give a toy to someone who wants it, or wait for a toy that someone already has, it’s not because their minds are small, or that their goals are fixed on material things. It’s because an emotional tension has fastened onto their mind, keeping them from feeling buoyant and connected. They feel urgent about having a thing or a turn right now! But what they need is connection. The particular chair at the table, the particular turn at bat, or the particular sand toy are far less important to a child’s well being than that sweet sense of connection that allows a child to flex when things aren’t “just right” for him or her.

It takes two to tangle.

When two children want the same thing, and they’re both feeling connected and relaxed, they share. One gives, and one waits. One can figure out something fun to do while he waits for a turn. When they’re toddlers, they don’t even need to talk about the turns. One takes the toy, and the other thinks about it, and then moves on to some other activity that pleases him. When children are older, they can figure out how to share verbally, and are pleased with themselves as they do it.
But when a child is tense, neither giving nor waiting is possible. He wants the blue shovel now! If a second child who wants the shovel is feeling connected, he can adjust his expectations and find something else to do for awhile. So problems with sharing arise primarily when both children are feeling rocky and too isolated or tense to relax.

Adult-enforced solutions have big limitations.
When children can’t share, we parents want to fix the problem quickly! But fixing it–saying whose turn it is, and timing the turns so they’re fair, for instance–turns us into enforcers rather than connectors. A child’s “need” for the blue shovel may be met, 5 minutes at a time, but his deeper need to feel close to someone still throbs. So he can’t share without help, and he continues to need help, incident after incident. So the parent or caregiver becomes tired and cranky—it takes emotional energy to be the enforcer!
In addition, when adults insist on turns and a child’s turn finally comes, that child may defend his hard-won item with all their energy, losing the joy of having it in the effort to defend his turn. Or he may gloat that he has it, losing the real value of play, and upsetting the children around him.

I think the most compelling reason not to habitually enforce turns is that it focuses our attention on trying to make things “the same” for each child, rather than on connecting with each child. When children don’t feel connected to you or to each other, their disputes will continue, and run your patience into the ground. They feel needy. No amount of enforcement will help them relax and work things out with tolerance and good will.
It can be smart to set up and patrol turns when you’re in a public place and tantrums will undo your own composure, when exhaustion prevents you from being able to listen to anyone’s feelings, or when you’re working with a large group of children, and paying attention to one will leave the others unsafe. But on good days, we adults can actually help children undo the tensions that make sharing an ongoing challenge. Here’s how.
“I’ll be with you while you wait.”
When your child wants something he can’t have, and you come close and listen to the tears or tantrum, you meet his core need to express his deep feelings. When you can manage to offer connection and company for him during his upset, he may feel angry with you for not “solving” the problem, but he’ll feel quite loved by you when he’s finished shedding those feelings. Crying, trembling, and having tantrums are children’s way of dissolving the power of an upset, so they can regain their ability to see that there are many options that would satisfy them. When we stay and love them until the storm is over, they have the strongest possible sense of security: “My Dad loves me no matter what,” “My Mommy loved me, even when I was jumping up and down about the blue shovel!”
Set a goal of long-term fairness, rather than short-term bean counting.

With this policy, you don’t have to spend your energy trying to make things the same for each child in the short run. A child who wants to ride the only tricycle in the yard may get a whole 20 minutes while her friend cries hard about wanting it. But the child who cries gets a caring adult’s full attention, a far more significant prize than the tricycle. And the child who has the trike doesn’t have to defend her toy–she can play without fear that something will be arbitrarily taken. She also has the opportunity to offer a turn out of real generosity, rather than being forced to “act nice” because an adult says so.

Sometimes, a child clings tightly to a toy or other desired item for days at a time, never letting others have a turn. In this case, you need to be proactive about the “I’ll be with you while you wait” policy. You let the child know that tomorrow will be different: “Sam, tomorrow when Maggie comes to play, she’s going to get to ride the trike first, and I’ll help you wait.” You know that when Maggie gets there, Sam will make a bee-line for the trike! So, prepared to help Sam connect with you, and plan to get to the trike first, saying, “Sam, today Maggie gets the first turn. Let’s move back a step so she can climb on.” Sam then gets to have the cry and the personal attention he’s been signaling for.

Here’s how it can work:
I was leading a play event for parents and children. Two little girls came, about the same age. The one who arrived first came with her parents, who were holding a baby in arms. She ran around the room calling “Baby! Baby! Baby!” over and over as she ran. We all watched with interest, and I thought, “Maybe she’s framing an issue, here!” and waited to see what further would happen.

When the second girl arrived, she began to play with her Mom. She was using a red ball. We had others exactly the same, in two other colors. The first girl decided she wanted the red ball, and came over to take it away. I intervened, and said, ‘No, this is Marla’s for now. There are other ones, if you want,” but she immediately went into a loud tantrum, and soon headed for her Daddy’s arms.

She screamed and cried so loudly that our ears were hurting for about 15 minutes. Anywhere else, it would have been hard on her parents, but they’d been in a class of ours, so they knew that we thought this kind of tantrum had an important purpose. The Dad held her, talked to her now and then, and when things quieted down, I asked, “Are you ready to play with something else besides the red ball?” She cried intensely a couple more times after my question, then sat peacefully in her Daddy’s arms. She asked for a nose wipe, watched the other child for a moment or two, got up, and ran over to play what she was playing. This was the first time she’d acknowledged the existence of the other child the whole evening. They played very closely together, laughing, sharing, taking turns, and even snuggling, though they’d never met before. Their quality of play was as if they’d known each other for years.

Listening helps children grow into adults who can solve problems.
We need a world in which people can notice one another’s needs and respond with generosity and good ideas. The need for problem-solvers in our society has never been greater. Hand in Hand’s mission is to support the kind of parenting that develops people who can empathize with others, who retain their sense of hope and fun, and who work well on a team. When a child can’t share, what’s needed is a sensible limit, and the caring of a parent or friend while the child has the cry or tantrum that will dissolve that bothersome tension, the real root of the problem.

Children who get to cry with someone who loves them have the chance to dissolve those feelings of “I’m not getting what I need.” Cry by cry, with the help of their parents and caregivers, they become more secure in the world, whatever the ups and downs of each day. The good cry and connection mends those temporary confusions about what’s really important. Children grow up less likely to seek external props for their internal security. They retain the kind of generosity they showed at the age of two, the kind that’s based on delighting in the joy of others, and in finding cooperative solutions.

We need a world in which people can notice one another’s needs and respond with generosity and good ideas. The need for problem-solvers in our society has never been greater. Hand in Hand’s mission is to support the kind of parenting that develops people who can empathize with others, who retain their sense of hope and fun, and who work well on a team. When a child can’t share, what’s needed is a sensible limit, and the caring of a parent or friend while the child has the cry or tantrum that will dissolve that bothersome tension, the real root of the problem. Children who get to cry with someone who loves them have the chance to dissolve those feelings of “I’m not getting what I need.” Cry by cry, with the help of their parents and caregivers, they become more secure in the world, whatever the ups and downs of each day. The good cry and connection mends those temporary confusions about what’s really important. Children grow up less likely to seek external props for their internal security. They retain the kind of generosity they showed at the age of two, the kind that’s based on delighting in the joy of others, and in finding cooperative solutions.