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Dear Subscriber First Name, If you’ve been in one of my parenting classes before, you’ve probably heard me talk about how we handle toddlers grabbing toys from one another. I usually start with what I call the Myth of Sharing—and it’s often met with a big paradigm shift. After all, haven’t we all heard the phrase “sharing is caring”? Parenting is largely about planting seeds for future behavior, and “sharing” is not one of those future goals. Think about it: adults don’t really share with each other. If someone admires your sunglasses, you don’t hand them over for a turn. Instead, you might later surprise them with the same pair for their birthday. That’s not sharing—that’s generosity. And generosity, kindness, cooperation, and problem-solving are the true skills we want to nurture in our children. We want to teach and model what we hope they’ll eventually do for themselves: to not let others treat them poorly, and to understand that using physical dominance to get our way is not how healthy relationships work. Here’s how I suggest handling "sharing" with children under 2 years old: If your child has something, they get to keep it until they are done. “Done” means they put it down—not when another child decides it’s their turn. If another child grabs it, the toy goes back to the child who was still using it—even if they don’t protest.
Did you notice that even if the child who had a toy taken from them seems fine, we still want to get it back for them? The reason for that is because children often need time to process. A child may look fine when a toy is taken, but feel sad later; or they may, over time, build a social construct that their wants don’t matter. And we don’t want the child who did the grabbing to learn that physical dominance is the best way to get their wants met. For children over 2 years old, there’s a developmental shift. At this stage, they begin to develop the capacity for cooperative play. But just because they can doesn’t mean they instinctively know how. This is where our role as parents and caregivers changes. When two children both want the same toy, instead of simply returning it, we guide them toward playing together. You might say something like: “Oh, it looks like both of you want the ball. How can you play with it together?” In these moments, you become more of a play coach. You step in and teach them simple games with a shared goal, like rolling a ball back and forth, or creating a turn-taking game—one child rolls the ball down the slide while the other rolls it back up. Your goal is to help initiate cooperative play, get them started, and then step back to see how they continue on their own. It’s unfair to expect children at this age to figure it out by themselves—they still need guidance. Think about it this way: even older children and teenagers need coaching to learn how to play games with rules. Ten kids can successfully play with one ball when there’s a coach teaching them the rules of basketball. Play coaching is a typical part of learning, even as children mature. Starting with toddlers simply lays the foundation—by helping them learn to take turns, follow simple rules, and work toward a shared goal, you’re building the capacity for more complex cooperation later on. Just like we wouldn’t expect older kids to master a team sport without guidance, we can’t expect toddlers to figure out cooperation on their own. Our role is to step in, set the stage, and then step back as they grow into those skills. Sharing is overrated. Cooperation is the skill that lasts.
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