Sharing toys ....

The constant taking of toys between the two of them has reached it's peak right now. I feel like doing a little of this :headbang:. I'm not really sure how to handle it since it's ALL THE TIME. As I type, the one is taking toys from the other which of course, causes that one to cry and scream and come running to me to do something about it. What do you do in these situations? Should I, everytime, go to the child that has taken the toy and give it back to the other? That's what I've been doing and explaining that we have to share our toys. This ends up being about 389 times a day. The one boy gets very frustrated when I go and take the toy back. He will then pick up the nearsest toy and throw it or find something to hit and have a tantrum. Just another phase to the toddler world but HELP! :laughing:

 

I put the toy in dispute in toy time out and explain, "if you can't play nice with the toy, it needs a rest." I would also make sure to find times when they are sharing and playing nice together to compliment them on it.

 

I'm with Nancy, I take the toy away from both of them very quickly, and put it in time out. Then I tell the kids that if they cannot play quietly with a toy, I will take the toy away. (I say play quietly, not no-taking because 75% of the time I didn't see who took the toy.) After one night of me taking every toy that they squawked over away, they don't do it nearly as much.

 

Depends on what happened before the crying started. If one of them took a toy, I give it back to the other. I only take the toy away if they start taking it back and forth and really fighting over it... too many bad memories of my mom punishing both of us when it was my sister who started it.

 

One word...TIMER....works wonders. It will take them a little while to get used to it, but once we started it, the fighting was maintained. I still use a timer. If the fighting starts, I tell them that I'm setting the timer. I choose the child that gets it first (usually the one that had it first), I usually set it for 3 minutes, and when the bell goes off, then the other gets it. For some reason, it just works. They know they get a turn and they don't continue to fight. Honestly, I only have to set it one or two times before they lose interest and go on to something else.

 

We put the toy on time out as well... I will also watch and let one have it for a minute and then say "okay it's J's turn" and that seems to work.
I've noticed mine really go through phases with this. We are in the middle of a bad phase of not sharing and it's driving me NUTS! It breaks up pretty easily but they just seem to be fighting more :headbang: