\nThis tearful, gasping lament regularly resounds through our house.<\/p>\n
![\"Andy_Hinds\"](\"https:\/\/sduptownnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/Andy_Hinds.jpg\")
<\/a>The counteraccusation \u2014 \u201cLIVVY\u2019S STEALING MY STUFF!\u201d \u2014 inevitably follows.
\nMy four-year-old twins have had a sense of ownership since they were babies, but now they have much more sophisticated ways to express their feelings about the inanimate objects that\u00a0surround them. Whereas they used to cut right to the chase, these days \u2014 thanks to their parents, Wonder Pets, and the gospel of the preschool social contract \u2014 they are able to first spend several minutes hurling indictments at each other before the conversation devolves into screams of \u201cMINE! MINE! MINE!\u201d and mutual whacks on the head.
\nChildren are notoriously bad at taking the long view. This is what makes imparting the concept of sharing so difficult. Here\u2019s how one of my attempts played out, after I broke up a full-contact kickboxing bout:
\nLivvy<\/i>: [hysterical] Maddy\u2019s… *sob* …not …sharing!
\nMe<\/i>: Well, sweetie, you can\u2019t just go up and take something out of her hands while she\u2019s playing with it. That\u2019s not sharing \u2014 that\u2019s just taking whatever you want, without thinking about what the other person wants.
\nLivvy<\/i>: But I waaaaaant it!
\nMe<\/i>: I know. But so does Maddy. So you have to wait until she\u2019s ready to share. Just think if you had something Maddy wanted. You wouldn\u2019t want her to come up and grab it, would you? If you take something from Maddy without permission, that\u2019s just not fair.
\nLivvy<\/i>: It\u2019s fair for me.
\nWhen we tell children why sharing is important, we usually emphasize the goodwill that it creates, and the warm feeling you get when you make someone else happy, but it\u2019s the rare preschooler who can relate to these lofty notions. I\u2019ve found some success in resolving conflicts of ownership by lecturing about what the world would be like if no one shared. I\u2019ll go on until the child can\u2019t stand it anymore and drops the toy just to get me to stop talking.<\/p>\n
Failing that, I resort to the basic elements of parenting preschoolers: bribes and threats.
\nAccording to psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg\u2019s classic research regarding the stages of moral development, as we grow up, we have different motivations for \u201cbeing good.\u201d In the first, \u201cpre-conventional\u201d level, we simply want to avoid getting in trouble, and take advantage of whatever benefits accrue from doing what we are told. As we mature, our morals are influenced by societal norms and laws, the \u201cconventional\u201d level. Eventually, we can hope to develop our own personal set of principles at the \u201cpost-conventional\u201d level, which are more supple than laws and other conventions, and can be thoughtfully applied to complex dilemmas.
\nBut let\u2019s face it: Few of us ever get beyond the \u201cwhat\u2019s-in-it-for-me\u201d pre-conventional stage when it comes to sharing our toys.
\nSure, we\u2019ll share a piece of gym equipment with a stranger, and maybe even a table at a restaurant, just so we won\u2019t be perceived as jerks, and only insofar as it doesn\u2019t actually inconvenience us. If\u00a0someone \u2014 even a spouse or loved one \u2014 asked for half of your sandwich, though, or the iPad you were watching \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d on, you would be like, \u201cHave you lost your mind?\u201d
\nI can identify with children\u2019s reluctance to share things they care about; the problem is that they care too much about stupid stuff. They don\u2019t differentiate between the mundane and the truly valuable. A broken crayon or a specific fork is just as crucial to their happiness as is their most cherished lovey. The attractiveness of a worthless object multiplies exponentially if anyone else expresses any desire for it, which they inevitably do, because an object, no matter how useless, shimmers with desirability when another child is holding it. I\u2019m pretty sure that I\u2019m not the only parent of siblings who knows the frustration of having to broker peace over a crumpled magazine subscription form scavenged from the recycling bin.
\nWhile preschoolers can be sweet and adorable, they are, at their core, covetous, materialistic, self-serving mercenaries who would throw their siblings under a bus for an 89-cent party favor. When my kids are at school, they (mostly) follow rules and repeat the mantras of good behavior their teachers feed them as part of the socialization process. And for that I am thankful in the extreme. But when it\u2019s just the two of them, they use those words to justify tormenting each other. \u201cI need space!\u201d one of them will shout, while stiff-arming the other. \u201cShe\u2019s not listening to my words!\u201d becomes a perfectly valid reason to pinch an arm or throw an awkward punch to the midsection. Likewise, \u201cShe\u2019s not sharing,\u201d means \u201cI WILL have that broken slinky, if I have to disembowel her first!\u201d
\nLike the teachers at my kids\u2019 preschool, I preach the abstract foundations for \u201cgood behavior,\u201d and hope that they will internalize them, and maybe, unlike many adults, someday come to understand and believe them. But when passions are high, it\u2019s all about sticks and carrots. Well, sticks mostly:
\n\u201cIf you don\u2019t give your sister that \u2014 what is that, anyway? A refrigerator magnet with a picture of a mortgage broker on it? \u2014 anyway, if you don\u2019t give that back right now, I\u2019m putting your Cinderella\u2019s shoes in time out.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s not faaaaaiiir…\u201d
\n\u201cIt\u2019s fair for me.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Andy Hinds |Parenting \u201cMADDY\u2019S NOT SHARING!\u201d This tearful, gasping lament regularly resounds through our house.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1274,"featured_media":246868,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"That's not fair","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1274"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}