For Sharon's sake

First off, can I say how much I dislike reading black backgrounded blogs. I know a few of you (about 3 or 4 of you) have them, but they are SO hard to read. I still read them...don't worry I wouldn't stop, but it does make your eyes go funny. Maybe I'm getting old.

For mostly Sharon's sake I'm posting this because I told her I would. And I know she reads my blog every day (thanks). Plus I told her I'd blog about it because this kind of stuff gets my juices flowing. I went to Parented Pre-School today. I didn't go last week because Tanner was sick still. So we get there late (25 minutes) because the home visit lady that comes through the PUF program is running behind, therefore making me behind. We got there just in time for Circle time and class/playtime. In the parented "teaching" class we talked about, and got a hand out on, sharing. We started off in partners and we were given legos to build/play with. We were instructed that whatever partner was on the left hand side of the 2 got the lego. We didn't get any further instruction on what we were to build or how long we had or if our partner was getting a turn. Then the teacher comes and says: time to let your partner have a turn, give it to them. It was kind of an odd feeling but the point was how many times do we tell our kids to just go and play, without any further instruction and then when they are really involved with the toy, we say: it's time to let "suzie" play with it. It was kind of an eye opener for me. I didn't think about sharing that way. I don't usually have problems with Tanner sharing with other kids. He usually more than happy to. I do have to step in and help him to see that he has 100 other trains and that 2 trains isn't a big deal to share with someone else. But just the feeling that if you were lets say.......reading a good book and someone came up and said oh, I want to read that book and then took it from you. Or if someone said "you need to share that book now. Give it to so and so". That would be really hard. So we talked about different ways on how to share. I, personally, felt like there was no really good solution to it. We all have to learn to share and every child is different and responds differently to sharing. Some children don't have any problems with it, but others have a HUGE problem with sharing. Maybe we need to start calling it borrowing instead of sharing. We, as adults don't ask to share things with each other. We ask to borrow them so why are we trying to teach our kids about sharing when really, it's just borrowing?

I wonder, for those of you that are in Wednesday's class or any of the other ones what the response was in your class and what your take is on it.

I know one Mom said that her child just does not like to share all the time with the older sibling and so the Mom was asking what do you do in a situation like that. For me, if Tanner can't share, I just take the toy away. I try to help intervene but sometimes if that doesn't work, I just take it away. I know it's not fair to either child but life isn't fair. I think these kinds of things build children up and stregthen their character. These little things are their trials, in a way. Maybe that's a little far fetched, but if you think about it....is it fair if we are doing what we are told to do (obedience) that our car breaks down, or our dog dies, or our house floods, or our furnace stops working because it's so cold. NO! But those are our "bumps" or trials as adults, just like sharing or borrowing may be a trial for a child. Having that trial will help build up their charcter. I hope that makes sense. Maybe we need to start trying to approach it in a differnt manner. Most of us have things that work for us in our families, some have things that don't work. If it doesn't work, then try something different. Right now, well actually for the past 3 months, Tanner has been sleeping on a foam mattress in our room because he kept waking up in the night with bad dreams. For some families, that wouldn't work. But for us, in order for all of us to have a good night's sleep (which helps me be a better, non cranky mother and wife), it works. And really, in the eternal perspective, I don't feel that it will harm him to sleep there until he feels it's safe to sleep in his own bed. How would you like to be forced into a place you were afriad of just because someone else thought it was better for you? I wouldn't.

So maybe sharing isn't your child's thing. Maybe 90% of the time they doesn't want to share, but maybe sometimes, that's okay. Maybe the other child could find another toy. I'm not saying let your child have his way with toys all the time. I don't have multiple children but if I do, I would divide some of the toys for each child to be specifically their own. With those toys, I wouldn't expect my child to share if he didn't want to. But then I'd have some "everybody can play with these" toys (I'm really into quotation marks tonight for some random reason...sorry) and I would expect my children to share them. Of course the "special" toys would have to be put away until the playmate left but we don't have that situation. Generally the children Tanner plays with, are good at sharing too. There's not one of the children, that I can think of, that absolutely refuses to share their toys with Tanner every time he comes. Of course children have good days and bad days and some days they are going to be more willing to share than others, but we should be tolerant and understanding of that. And some days you'll just have to say "my child is playing with that and that's that". You can't always force the toy out.

We also need to be our children's advocate! I can not express that enough. If our child is having a temper tantrum or upset, I think (I'm not 100% perfect at this) we need to try to identify the childs feelings. I know with Tanner, I express to him that I know and understand it's hard for him and that I know he doesn't like it and I'm sorry that he is mad or upset. It usually helps him for the next time and then he'll say to me that he's mad. Sometimes they just need that tantrum, I agree, to just let out their frustrations and I think that's good. That's healthy, in my opinion. But sometimes it helps, at least for me it has, to just have a quick chat (like 1-2 minutes) about how he might have been feeling and why. Sometimes he just says "I don't know" but other times he can tell me it made him sad or mad or not happy. I'm not saying be an advocate just for our childs behavior, but in a lot of things. Our children can't always stand up for themselves and need that extra guidance or voice to stand up.

Well, that's enough of that. I hope you got your fill and I would love to hear people's responses to this.