Does My Kid Have to Share? What I Heard at the Playground

Hi friends, over the weekend I took my two youngest to the playground. The mood at home had gone south, so I got the two of them dressed in record time and we headed out. When we got there, I realized I'd forgotten the sand toys.

So the kids went down the slide, hopped on the trampoline, and had fun everywhere else. I even got a little peace and quiet and could turn my face up to the sun. At some point my two-and-a-half-year-old came over, sat down next to me, and asked about the sand toys. I told him I'd forgotten them, sorry. After thinking it over for a moment, my son hesitantly walked over to another boy who was sitting in a huge pile of sand toys. My son sat down next to him and tentatively reached for a digger. The boy yanked it right out of his hand and yelled, "Mine!" And my son slunk away.

My eight-year-old daughter had watched the whole thing. She came over and said, "That boy could have shared a little." I nodded.

Does my kid have to share?

Soon after, another child, a little girl, was drawn to the big selection of sand toys. She sat down next to the boy too, watched for a while, and then picked up a sand mold, and the boy screamed again. The girl's mom came over, picked up her daughter, and said, "You have to understand. That boy doesn't want to share. Nobody has to share their toys. You don't have to share your things, either."

To be totally honest, at first I thought I'd misheard. Of course we've been on the other side of this, too, when another kid wanted something that belonged to us. And I agree that a child shouldn't automatically have to hand over whatever they're happily playing with at that moment. Special things, like brand-new toys or favorite stuffed animals, surely have a special status as well.

But ruling out sharing so categorically sounded strange to me. When we had lots of stuff with us at the playground, and my kid couldn't possibly play with all of it at once while another kid had nothing, I've always tried to find something we could hand over. Along the lines of: "Oh, you're digging so well with the blue shovel and want to keep it? I get that. But could we lend the yellow shovel to that kid?" And honestly, it was never a problem.

At home I did a little research on the topic and found lots of articles in which parents encourage their kids not to share their things, because that means they're making their boundaries clear. It leaves me a bit at a loss. I'm completely fine with my child not wanting to give up a favorite toy. But a single sand mold out of a giant heap of sand toys, like in our story, is somehow a different thing to me.

It's definitely not always easy to share. We adults know that, too. But when you find a good compromise about what you can hand over, there are a lot of positive lessons in it. My child sees how happy another child is. My child realizes they can play wonderfully even without the toy they loaned out. And in the best case, you find a new digging buddy and build a sandcastle together.

Now I'd love to know: How do you handle this? What do you think? I'd love to hear your take!