Re: How do you teach a kid not to be so selfish?
Asked by CindyLou325

Question:

My daughter is an only child and I don't spoil her but she is very closed fisted when it comes to any other children playing with her

stuff or even giving anything out to other kids.  I am a single mom so we also have a problem with her accepting my boyfriend (of 2 years!) 

My Advice:

When my kids were young, they went to a terrific preschool that taught us a lot about parenting.  A couple of the policies they followed made me very uncomfortable until I saw it work - i.e., how they dealt with the issues of sharing and taking turns. (These are really the same issue, I guess.)

As we all know, every parent wants their children to be generous, to share willingly.  The approach the preschool took was to not require sharing at all. I was very skeptical of this approach at first.

Here's how it worked: a child who brought a toy from home was never required to share it with anyone. He was required to put it away in his cubbyhole rather than leave it laying out if he didn't want others to play with it, but he was never forced to let others play with it.  This was done without any judgment on the part of the teachers.  Their attitude was "The toy is yours. Of COURSE you don't have to let anyone else play with it."

The toys provided by the preschool were not required to be shared, either, in this sense: if several children wanted to do the same thing – use the swing, for example – the teachers would start a list. Each child understood that he/she would get a turn when the people above on the list were finished. But, and this the school considered key, when a child’s turn came, he could use the swing as long as he wanted. (If it became clear that a child was monopolizing the toy, especially for reasons other than enjoyment, the teachers saw that as a sign that there was an issue that needed to be worked on. This happened, to my surprise, rarely.)

At the preschool's suggestion, at home we would pick out, or sometimes even buy, toys that were considered commonly owned. When children came to visit, those toys were available for everyone. We would encourage, but never require, that our kids share all their toys. Anything they didn't want to share had to be kept in its put-away place. We followed the school's example and never judged them for it, never used the term "selfish."

The amazing result was that my kids shared, and still share, more openly and generously that I ever did. 

After thinking about it for years, I came to believe that my kids developed a habit of sharing precisely because the world of authority around them protected their right to have dominion over their things.  The mini-world they lived in ran successfully, was civilized, because it protected their right to private property.

I'm still amazed by it.