pacrosby
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Nov 6, 2009
Wow - DIdn't realize people did this so different.
I was the youngest of 5 siblings - so there was no way my mom would have stopped fights between 'that's mine, you can't play with it' or she would have been doing that all day long. So I guess I was brought up with everything is shared. That's how it is in my house with ds8 and dd7. Don't get me wrong - they each have their own things (so it's not like it's community property - it is either ds's or dd's or 'the family's') - but you simply are required to share and we don't have to ask since we all know everything is shared. They have a couple things that are truly their own that I will ask the other not to touch (special things from when they were little for example), but toys - if you're not playing with it - anyone in the house is allowed to do so.
About the only time I might do it different is if one kid is too little and might actually break or lose a piece of it (like legos - if not careful - might lose things) or a DS game and it might get broken. Other than that - if everyone is old enough to actually take care of it - they can play with it.
I think it is good for the kids to know that it's not 'mine, mine, mine'. When I went to college you could truly tell the people who had siblings and/or had shared rooms with siblings - they weren't used to others seeing/touching/asking to use THEIR stuff.
And, of course, the ultimate decision on whether or not you can play with something that isn't your own toy isn't the owner, in this house, it is ME! No way do I want my kids thinking they have 'their own' stuff and ultimate rights to it now- when they get a cell phone eventually they need to know it is at my descretion whether they are allowed to use it (based on behavior), same thing with a car in the future.... So obviously I will always give permission to the other child to encourage sharing....
Those who need to ask permission - what do you do when the owner says no? I can't imagine just sayign to the other one 'sorry, your brother said no. Even though it's just sittin gthere not being used, i guess you can't play with it.'
This does enlighten me on why so many playdates in the past before my kids got older went the way they did. I have often been surprised when a kid says 'no that's mine' when my child goes over to play at their house.
omg...I could have written this.
Not that I grew up in a larger family, it was only me and my brother. But I have somewhat of a larger family. 4 kids with less than a 5 yr gap between oldest and youngest.
Everyone in this house plays with pretty much everything. What am I supposed to buy multiples of each and every toy so that everyone can have one of their own? Bottom line, if something is not being played with, the first one who shows interest gets it. I can't even imagine having one child start to play with something and then letting another come over and say "that's mine, I want to play with it now". Or worse yet "that's mine, you can't play with it" even though they are not playing with it themselves. That's just being selfish and mean-spirited.
Stuffed animals are an exception. Everyone has "their" special stuffies and the owner always has first dibs.
But I must add, this does not mean that my children think "everything" is community property as a result. This is a bit of a stretch. They simply know that the toys in OUR house have been purchased to play with, not to hoard, and that selfish, mean-spirited behavior is not tolerated in our home. For the most part I believe we are talking about basic toys here, and toys that were most likely purchased by someone else. We're not talking about special 'somethings' and/or items they may have saved up their own money for. Obviously the rules are going to be different in those circumstances.
And some kids really seem to have no problem with sharing their toys. I know my don't. Easy going I guess. And very very close. No sibling rivalry in this house (as yet LOL).
Like this above poster, I've seen a huge difference over the years with my kids and their ability to share and play cooperatively with others as compared with some neighbor kids. And unfortunately, the attitude does tend to carry over into adulthood.