Still forcing your child to "share"?

It's said that parenting is a big learning experience, and every step parents take is writing the script for their children's future. However, many times due to anxiety caused by busy schedules, we as parents always take for granted our norms to require our children to be obedient, just to get the peace of mind that everything is under control.

Learning to share is a must for every child from an early age. Children who love to share are more popular in groups and make friends faster, and in the process, through interaction with their peers, promote their mental development and exercise their ability to analyze problems and solve difficulties in life. The willingness to share is also a reflection of manners and grooming, reflecting the style of the parenting family's approach to the world, so many parents attach great importance to this aspect of their children's performance.

In children's playgrounds, I often see mothers say to their children, "Be a good boy, give your toys to your friends, be willing to share, and don't be so stingy!"

Other mothers, to save face, will forcibly take away the child's hand toys to others to play with, in the face of parental coaxing and coercion, the child either reluctantly does, as if suffering a lot of aggression, or can only cries to express resistance.

Whenever this happens, parents are often puzzled and blame their children for not knowing what to do, because, for many parents, the so-called sharing is to give fun toys to their peers and delicious food to their peers.

From a psychological point of view, the essence of sharing is willingness and happiness, and the prerequisite for it is initiative and equality, not passivity and coercion. The mother's behavior did not take into account the child's feelings, a practice that used to be very common in China's traditional education model, where parents are the authority and therefore rarely reflect on their guidance style.

However, what is often overlooked is the fact that children's cognitive development and psychological maturity are still far from that of adults, and that learning to share is a process of socialization that requires gradual progress and cannot be achieved overnight. If a child is forced to behave perfectly, it will not only be difficult to achieve the goal, but will also cause unnecessary emotional reactions on both sides, and parents will also lose an opportunity to give their child the right guidance and grow with them.

So, how should parents guide their children so that they can willingly share and gain joy and friendship through interaction with their peers? I have summarized 3 ways.

First, guide your child to clarify boundaries and respect your child's decisions.

As I said before, the prerequisite for sharing is initiative and equality. Therefore, only when children are clear about the boundaries of items, know what is their own and what is someone else's, and have the right to decide on the items that belong to them, so that they feel autonomous and equal, the desire to share will be stimulated, and children will know how to respect others.

For example, for my two children, I would agree with them in advance on the toys that belonged to each of them and encourage them to exchange and share, but if they did not want to share, I would say, "Well, it's your toy and you have the right to decide" and never blame them for it. Because of the clear boundaries, they have been getting along well and rarely have conflicts.

Secondly, help your child analyze the problem, and restrain the impulse to use language to solve it.

Although clear boundaries can reduce conflict between children, conflict is inevitable in life, and the first conflict encountered in the life of children, is often related to sharing, for example, in the playground to see the swing, the child is eager to play, but at this time the swing is occupied by other children, some children do not know how to properly deal with such a problem, out of instinct want to go forward to fight.

Parents may wish to seize this opportunity to guide, we can say to the child: "If you are playing on the swing, other children to grab, do not let you play, how would you feel?" If the child says "I will be very angry", parents can help the child to analyze the problem and propose a plan, such as teaching the child to take a toy car to exchange, or use language to put forward a request to play with peers in turn, or do something else first, and then play later.

In short, parents should help their children to develop good habits in this process, that is, to analyze difficulties with reason and find ways to solve problems with words, rather than acting on instinct and impulse, and parents should also know how to let go of their children, not to make decisions for them everywhere, to give them sufficient space to think independently.

Last but not least, parents should lead by example, life is the best classroom.

We know that imitation is an important way for children to learn, and parents should first have the quality to be the kind of person they want their children to be.

For example, when they encounter something funny, say it and laugh with the whole family.

Buying something delicious and tasting it with the whole family.

Take the whole family on a weekend trip and enjoy a good time together.

Parents are the best teachers for their children, and children who grow up in a harmonious family will naturally be more sociable and willing to share. In addition, parents should not take their children's sharing as child's play but should take it seriously and express their happiness and joy sincerely, so that their children will feel respected and have the real experience of sharing with others.

The education of children is the art of love, which requires not only love from us as parents but also a constant source of patience. Only by treating the child as an individual with an independent personality and thoughts, fully accepting the child's various performances that do not meet the expectations of parents, and conforming to the laws of the child's psychological development, can the child's road to growth become smoother and our parents become more relaxed.