Just a little perspective

My son pushed your child today: from one mother to another

lovely. smile

lovely. smile

I agree..thought you might like it. grin

interesting read of a mothers persepective.

i agree and like most of what she said but i disagree on other points.

when she says that she doesn't make her child say sorry or share the toy but then goes on to say that she is sorry and wants him to share but doesn't do anything about it.

i believe in modelling appropriate behaviour. for example she could have said sorry herself so her son heard. then after he played with it for a while gently encouraged him to give the toy back. doing nothing about it and saying that she doesn't want to confuse him is a bit of a cop out/easy way out.

teaching compassion to your child is so important and i think she did that when she pointed out how sad the other child was, but i think she failed when she did nothing to help the situation.

Sounds just right.

I think its important to teach them how to share... and as much as most of what she says is spot on - I do think she shouldn't have let him keep the toy. For every action is a consequence. Snatching a toy shouldn't mean that they can keep playing with it, isn't that rewarding a negative behaviour? To me that is teaching that we can do whatever we want, and sometimes it upsets others but hey... I got what I want out of it so they'll just have to deal with it.

If they dont know how to share yet its our job to teach them. I taught dd at an early age about sharing by starting off handing a ball back and forth to each other. At first she wanted to keep the ball, but with perseverance she started handing it back to me, and we'd say 'ta' to each other. She was never allowed to keep something if she snatched it to get it... and she soon learnt that she could hand another toy to a kid, get them to drop it and then play! laugh she learned what compromise was and is now a great sharer. She was about 18 months old when she did this.

She said he knows how to share...but he's 2.5 and like her I think it's unfair to expect a 2 year old to want to share ALL the time. DS2 shares, most of the time spontaneously, but has times when he doesn't want to. He's the child who wasn't forced to share just because that was the expectation.

Just because a situation isn't dealt with immediately doesn't mean it's not addressed at some later date. This mom thought the 'bigger' lesson was teaching her child about how other people feel when something happens that they don't expect, and not the fact that her son took a toy off another child. She doesn't say she didn't address that, just that she didn't address it then and there. It was an open letter to another mother, and I'm sure she didn't put in it ALL the details of the incident and how she dealt with it. For all we know she did allow him to play with it and then encourage him gently to share it..just because she doesn't explicitly say so, doesn't mean she did nothing about it. For all we know her son then freely apologised because he understood how the other child felt.

Some parents are looking for a quick 'fix' to problems, that in terms of child development, aren't actually problems at all. There are ways to teach children that there are some things that aren't acceptable to society as a whole, without expecting things that might make people feel better in the short term, but do nothing to help the child actually understand in the long term. We play the long game in this house, which to some would make us 'permissive', or could be seen as not dealing with a situation we might find ourselves in; in short we have been where this mother is numerous times. My role as a mother is to guide, not dictate, and that's what we do. We might not guide in a way that some other parent might, and some parents might think that we are being too 'friendly' with our children...but we've seen the 'rewards' of playing the long game and so we keep doing it.

I think its important to teach them how to share... and as much as most of what she says is spot on - I do think she shouldn't have let him keep the toy. For every action is a consequence. Snatching a toy shouldn't mean that they can keep playing with it, isn't that rewarding a negative behaviour? To me that is teaching that we can do whatever we want, and sometimes it upsets others but hey... I got what I want out of it so they'll just have to deal with it.

If they dont know how to share yet its our job to teach them. I taught dd at an early age about sharing by starting off handing a ball back and forth to each other. At first she wanted to keep the ball, but with perseverance she started handing it back to me, and we'd say 'ta' to each other. She was never allowed to keep something if she snatched it to get it... and she soon learnt that she could hand another toy to a kid, get them to drop it and then play! laugh she learned what compromise was and is now a great sharer. She was about 18 months old when she did this.

But isn't that just teaching her that every action has an aritifical reaction? Like pushing a button on a toy and having a light flash... that doesn't mean she understands the social and kindness and fairness behind the sharing if it is a habitual and learned habit.

I think the blog entry was getting at not forcing a habit prior to the natural ability of the child being ready to reach that point by choice and understanding. As she said, it was an investment in the future - a long term gift to the child as well as to the other child who then learns that artifical reactions are not always going to happen and that fairness is not always going to happen in expected ways.

If someone breaks into my house, I'm not going to get the money stolen back again am I? And I don't want to be one of those people who cannot appreciate all the joys in my life because I am too occupied with what other people have taken from me. Of course it isn't really "fair" in the sense that Western culture commonly believes defines fairness - but does that have to be the be all and end all? Why so much fixation on giving the toy back again?

I needed to read this today, so thank you.

We the entire afternoon at the hospital today, majority of it in the waiting room where i was glared at and people were openly rolling their eyes when i was politely asking dd1 to put things away or asking her to use her quiet voice.

Yes people, she was running around and dancing and greeting every. single. person. that entered the waiting room. Yes, she thought it was clever of herself to hand everyone a magazine when they sat down. No, you cant understand what she is saying, im sorry about that... but to look at me like you're mortified there is A CHILD talking to you and she isnt making sense... i cant help but think you're not a very nice person.

No, im not going to yell at her for tripping over that old mans foot. She would have been hurt more than him. So even if she could say 'sorry' i wouldnt make her say it. Tell her that you have enough to read, dont snap at her. She understands everything you're saying to her...and about her. Dont LAUGH at me when i address you in the same manner i address her and ask you politely to not speak to my child like that.

She ISNT a naughty child. She is three a three year old. Im not being soft on her, im being her mother.

Yep... bad few days all round sad Now for a good day tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

This is lovely! I think many people today are focused on getting their children to do 'socially acceptable' things before a child's actually developmentally ready. I am one of those people in waiting rooms and supermarkets whose children are very loud, and I get a lot of glares. However, I don't consider loudness naughty, so unless there is a good reason why they should be quieter, like in a hospital, then I don't bother 'correcting' them. The fact is, when we are out there are so many other things I am trying to teach and model to them - not raising my voice, because in doing so they learn that raising their voices is the normal thing to do. Saying 'excuse me' when someone is in our way - even when they rudely ignore it - because it's the polite way of trying to get someone to move out of the way. My kids are loud and many find them annoying, but they aren't being naughty, they aren't running around touching everything (well, mostly...he he), and they aren't being rude to people, so I'm not going to destroy the delicate balance that is shopping with my children just to make them quieter. Plus it wouldn't work anyway! What people often don't understand is that at least two of my children find areas filled with people and noise, such as supermarkets, highly stressful, but they judge anyway. I think this mother is doing the right thing - she is focusing on the bigger picture, and the bigger lessons that her child will need to learn. Two year old children may appear to share, or even to understand sharing, but the fact is that they may do it because it is something they have 'learned' to do so they don't get into trouble - but they really don't understand why.

It's not forcing social norms.... to recognise when we've done wrong and making that wrong right is teaching manners.

My son pushed your child today: from one mother to another

The only thing I dont like about it is that it assumes all other parents yell at, smack, snatch from their children.
I dont do any of those things but I dont say "look he's sad". I say "x had it first, wait for your turn." If I know the child well I ask them both to share the toy, that could be playing together or taking turns.