It’s a “value” that was drilled into us from early childhood, you have to learn to share. Most of us have memories of teachers and caregivers hammering home the sharing message when we were in school. This is probably why we never stopped to question it as we became parents ourselves.
We see our kids fighting over a toy, or hear one sibling crying about how they want whatever their brother has, and our first instinct is probably to referee and try getting the kids to share. But what if we didn’t step in and force sharing? What if we let the kids work it out on their own?
Challenging The Sharing Rule
Amanda Elder, a freelance writer and mother of two, asked herself these very same questions. Tired of refereeing fights between her two kids, she wondered if forcing them to share was really such a good idea.
She decided to dig in and do a little research on whether or not sharing was that important to early childhood development. She also tried some sharing experiments at home with her own kids. What she discovered might surprise you! She discusses her findings in an article for the Washington Post. Read the results of Amanda’s experiment breaking old childhood sharing rules here.
