Who Ate All the Pie? The Virtue of Sharing

Does your child is evil or an evangelist?

When I told my child to share his toys or his candies to the others, he would say:
“Why you always ask me to share my thing with the other, you don’t love me anymore?”
“I don’t have that much.  If I share it, I won’t have any left."
“Why I have to share? I play the toy first, lets him play later after I don’t want to play.”

I wonder why the child regards sharing is a negative thing.  

Share Means Lost?

The traditional schooling tries to tell the children that the world operates by finite resources in scarcity. They are playing the zero-sum game.  From the children point of view, share means lost.  They adopted the scarcity model of pizza.  I won’t have any left if I share it with you.

Negative Experience To Distort The Virtue

Helen was six years old. She shared the coloring pen to her classmate Susan. Susan never returned the coloring pen to Helen. When Helen asked for the return, Susan rejected it. Two girls fight. The teacher punished Helen because she initiated the fight. Helen got the narrative to tell herself:

• What she shared would never get returned but got punishment.
• The girl with long hair was evil (Susan had long hair)
• Never shared anything with others again, and hated long hair girl.

The child might interpret the virtue as a negative thing.  Help the child to learn no matter he or she is in a bad situation, never attacking the evil and cultivate virtue instead.  Imagine when you feel like surrounding by darkness.  It's not useful to attack it.   Instead, you turn on the light can help you more. 

Abundance vs. Scarcity

Imagine your child rejects to share the toy with the peer. She regards sharing toys with others mean lost.  It’s more useful to help the child to think if I share with you, we will both have it. Sharing with others won’t mean loss. It means to take turns playing the toy.  The conversation can be like this…

"Mommy understands your feeling. You had played this toy already. The other children haven’t played this toy yet. Let’s the other child play it, and you wait for your turn again"
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mom:  This toy is played by whom moment before?
Child reply:  Me.
Mom:  You played the toy just before.  Let's another child to play it. You wait for a while,
​             and then you take your turn later.

More Doesn't Mean Better

The mindset of abundance feels like you have more than enough to enjoy your life. You don’t need to grasp as much as you can. It's not uncommon the first question from a child when someone gives him something, he would say I can get only one? Or can I get another one?  The fact is more doesn't mean better.   Some other children get the behavior that when they desperately want a specific toy, their whole world revolves around getting this one toy, or they would feel like he lost his universe.  Once their parents buy that toy for them, their joy fades out.  They want something else.  If they don't appreciate what they have, more is not a good thing and won’t make them happier.  It’s more useful to let the children feel grateful for what they own at present and what they may get in the future.  They can have great things and not fear someone would take away from them.

If the child did resist the concept of sharing, try to change the perspective from sharing to exchange.  You can talk with the child something like this:
 
“You play this toy for a long time already, why not exchange the toy with John?  You see, his toy can speak.”
 
“You haven’t played this one before! His toy seems very interesting. Exchange your toy with John.  You and John will both have the fun.”

Practice Gratitude

Why did some children find it difficult to show gratitude towards other people? They take it for granted for whatever great things happen to them.  Mostly, you hear more about the complaints from them than to give thanks for dinner, thanks for the ride....  Practice gratitude helps the kid feeding their brains with habitual positive oriented thinking instead of getting stuck in a pattern of negativity.   The children learn whatever happened to them are gifted.  Sharing the positive stories make them feel connected, and spread the love.

It’s good to have the dinner conversation about sharing three things they were grateful on that day (don’t cheat and settle for two!).  My girl might tell me something like:

• A stranger gave her rainbow of candies
• A classmate shared her umbrella when there was a sudden downpour of rain
• The teacher praised her drawing was beautiful
• An angry dog didn’t bark at her, it barked at someone else.
• She found some delicious snacks at home