The "Sharing" business!

Children’s playdate goes through its own process of evolution – from being mostly chaotic with a few moments of peaceful play to mostly peaceful play with a few moments of chaos and disagreement. Thankfully, Abhay now is at the second stage of this evolution! But he still has  some sporadic outbursts of “Its mine” syndrome that used to dominate most of his play dates before. Today, his best friend Suhas came over and I must say, both the boys seem to be doing much better than their past record in playdate history. However, at times, when it comes to sharing a favorite toy, they rediscover their love for the game of tug of war!! 

During the course of their play date, I read the book “The Boy who wouldn’t share” by Mike Reiss and illustrated by David Catrow. Edward has loads of toys and yet is unwilling to share even a single toy with his little sister Claire. He simply refuses to even consider letting his sister ride his rocking horse, or wear his wizard’s hat or hug his teddy bear or play with his truck, duck, train, bike or the doll. He has only one reply – “They’re mine and I want them all”. But one day, he gets stuck in a colossal heap of toys and finds that he cannot move. Just then his mom brings a plateful of brownies and unable to find Edward, she hands over the entire plate  to Claire! But does Claire hold a grudge against her selfish brother and deny him the fudge?  She does not; as the younger sibling, she does what younger sisters normally do - lend a helping hand! So Edward realizes his folly and discovers sharing is fun too! So as I read this story, I asked the boisterous four year olds  as to who was the boy who wouldn’t share between the two of them and the two brats promptly pointed a finger at each other!