My daughter is three years old and has a strong sense of personal property, typical for this age. About two weeks ago, she gave us a vivid illustration of the fact that sharing, as a concept, is a two-way interaction.
On the way to the Beacon Hill park, we realized that we left our daughter’s sandbox toys at home. She was a little upset, but we told her that there were many other interesting things at the park – swings, slides, a zip line, etc. She would just need to share them with other kids. The virtue of sharing is not taken for granted at her age, to say the least, so it took quite a bit of convincing before she agreed that sharing is a good thing to do.
As we came to the playground, she saw somebody else’s plastic bucket and toys in the sandbox and immediately suggested: “Let’s share those!” How can you argue with this? After all, sharing is good!