How many times have you heard, "That's mine!" from your child?
While sharing starts tough as a kid, it is an essential skill required during their childhood when playing and learning. As parents we are able to support our children by giving them plenty of time and opportunity to learn. Encouraging them to share and being generous to others says a lot about your character too!
Why Sharing is Important?
Sharing is important because it helps toddlers and children to make new friends and play interactively. Once your child goes to preschool or kindergarten or when they start to have playdates they will need to be able to share with others. After all, sharing is caring.
Sharing encourages children to compromise and to be honest. They will slowly learn that if we give others a little, we can also gain some of what we want. As the saying goes, you get what you give.
Children who share will also learn how to bargain and how to deal with disappointment. All of these are valuable skills in life.
Sharing At Different Ages
Toddlers
Your adorable child probably doesn't understand the meaning of sharing as toddlers in general thinks everything belongs to them and everything has to go their way. That's why with sharing, it teaches them to value the person more than their toys or games.
Encouragement and practice are good building blocks to help your toddler during this stage.
Preschoolers
By the age of three, many children will start to understand about turn-taking and sharing. For example, your preschooler will probably think that sharing is fair and the right thing to do. However, he/she might not be too thrilled about sharing into action when their time is up. They might also be impatient while waiting for their turn.
To build your preschooler’s sharing skills, you can encourage fairness and compromising. It’s good to be realistic about a preschooler’s ability to share.
Though most children at this age are still learning and find it hard to understand other people’s thoughts and emotions, they might just surprise you.
School-age children
Primary school children will begin to understand that others have feelings too. They'll learn to share more and are willing to take turns. It might still be hard for them to share their favourite toy or game but you know what they say, slowly but surely.
Helping toddlers and preschoolers learn to get along with others isn’t always easy. But books can help! Me Books can help!
What better way to help children with this big concept than with picture books? This book list is all about helping kids to learn about that big, ever-important life skill of sharing.
1. A beautiful story about two feuding harbour towns who build a wall to separate themselves from each other. Can Leo help the townspeople put aside their differences, take down the wall and share the pier? Between the Walls by Tuule Pere is an amazing story of how beautiful things can come from sharing.
2. If your child loves dinosaurs, The Really, Really, Really Big Dinosaur by Richard Byrne is the smart book choice. When a big show-off dinosaur learns to share, he discovers two really, really, really good new friends. From talented picture-book maker, Richard Byrne, this is a hugely original exploration of sharing and friendship in a playful and prehistoric world.
3. Learning how to share their toys is one of the first challenges children face when it comes to sharing. ‘Do dinosaurs share?’ by Feng Feng Hutchins is a story of Terry the dinosaur who doesn’t like to share. Terry learns that sharing his toys with his friends is so much more fun than playing alone.
4. Red has a new drum! He loves it so much that he wants to share the fun with his friend Bam. Bam and Red by Michelle Robinson is a great easy-to-read book for early readers. A great book to introduce the concept of sharing and forgiving to young children.