The situation reminded me of an episode of Olivia (a children's TV character), where Olivia is being taught to share by her parents and she (rightly) points out that adults really don't share their belongings. To illustrate this Olivia goes into an imagination scene where she sees her mother wanting to use her car and along comes someone who also wants to use the car. Olivia has to remind her mother to "Share" and the person drives off with the car.
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This episode of Olivia is funny because it is true. Adults really don't have to share all that often. Most of the sharing that we are trained to do as kids is more about stopping the fights and learning how to act appropriately when someone has something that you want. Of course that training is very useful as it would be awful to see two adults biting and hitting each other when one wanted the other one persons car or phone (I am sure that has happened somewhere).
Sharing is such a funny concept, and something that I struggle to know how to train my kids in. Since I have been thinking about this topic, I have realised that I want my children to share not because it is the socially acceptable thing to do but from a loving and generous heart. That is a challenge for me too, as I do love to be generous to others but I still want to eat all the chips myself, or don't want to lend certain possessions to my friends in case I never see them again. I know my heart is often not loving and generous and therefore sometimes my actions do not model sharing to my girls.
So next time I am yelling at encouraging my kids to share, I'm and going to tell myself the very same thing because actions speak so much louder than words.
How do you train your kids to share?
