If You Are a Parent, You Are a Teacher

Whether you planned it that way or not, if you have children, you are a teacher. You may not spend a lot of time teaching reading, writing, math and science to your kids, but you are teaching them something that may be far more important to them when it comes to fitting into the world and getting along with other people. It is called, "sharing."

Sharing and fair play, generally, are learned traits. You probably noticed right away when you had children and over the following years that they weren't born with a tendency towards sharing much of anything; their parents, their time, their toys, their treats, or their money. "Mine" is a word they learned very quickly.

Unfortunately, left to themselves, most kids will end up self-centered, demanding, selfish, bossy little boys and girls that no one else wants to play with. That's where you, as a home-schooling parent, come in.

We've all tried the, "Why don't you let Mollie play with your doll for a while?" type of routine. In return, we usually get, "No, it's my doll. I don't want Mollie to play with MY doll!" so what is a parent to do? There is no one solution that fits all kids, but here are a few suggestions you may want to try.

1. Make Sure You, Yourself, are a Good Role Model for Sharing.

Sometimes, as parents, we don't want to be role models, but we are, whether we like it or not, so we need to make sure we are good ones. Don't be selfish with your own possessions. Of course there are some things we don't really want to share-like those last few chips in the bag, but do it anyway.

Don't hog the choice of TV programs for yourself. Make sure each family member gets a chance to be the one to choose on a regular basis.

When I was young, we often had family gatherings at a particular uncle's home. The kids-and that included me---had to sit at a small table in the kitchen and only got wings and necks of the chicken to eat. I remember my uncle joking about the "good parts" being reserved for the grown ups. I didn't mind being shuttled into the kitchen to eat, but to this day, I really don't like chicken necks or wings. (Even if you call them buffalo wings, they are still the not so "good parts" of the chicken to me.)

My mother was a great role model. If there was work to do, she got in and did it with us. I remember washing windows from the inside while my mother scrubbed away on the outside, making silly faces at me. By sharing the work, she made it seem like fun-or at least not like we were slaves and she was the master.

2. Teach Your Kids to Share inside Your Own Family

Give your children plenty of chances to share with their siblings. You can offer one child a small handful of M and M's and ask them to share with the rest of the children, or hand an older child a juice container and tell him or her to pour glasses of juice to share with the others.

In our home, if there was sharing of food to be done, we had a saying. "You divide, and Carol decides." That meant, if I divided a cookie between us, Carol, my sister, got to choose which piece would be hers. If Carol did the dividing, I became the decider. You can bet that the divider was pretty careful to make sure the pieces were fairly divided.

If you are shopping with one child and buy them a treat, have them pick one of equal value to share with "sister" or "brother" when you return home. The more you repeat a phrase about sharing, the more it will become a part of your children's lives.

When my grandchildren visit today and I give them a cookie, they often ask if they can cut it in half and wrap the other half to share with the one left at home. (Of course, I usually manage to give them each a whole cookie, but I love the idea that they are so used to the concept of sharing that they are willing to take half a cookie when they could have eaten a whole one and no one (at home) would have been the wiser.)

When disputes over sharing toys arise, use a kitchen timer and say, "Give Brother a turn on the swing as soon as the timer rings." Or, "When the timer rings, let Sister play with the doll. After that you can have another turn."

My daughter and her two youngest children, 9 and 6, made a small tomato garden this year. After weeks and weeks of watching the tiny seedlings grow into nice husky bushes with a number of little green tomatoes, the girls really got excited. They carefully watered the plants each day, counted every single tomato, and longed for the day the tomatoes would be ripe.

Finally, one lone tomato turned red. After looking at the remainder of the crop, their mother decided that it would be a while before the other fruits would be ready to eat so, instead of chopping the tomato into a salad, she said, "let's share our tomato." Luckily it was a big tomato, and that night, at dinner, each plate had a single slice of the tomato on it.

If you use events that crop up in everyday life to help your children learn to share inside the family, it will become so natural to them that it will be easy for them to share with those outside the family.

3. Create Opportunities For Your Children to Share Outside Your Own Family.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to find opportunities to share. If you are planning an outing, ask your children to invite a child that may not have many chances to do whatever it is that you are planning to do. If you have more than one child, let one choose the child to invite one time and the other, the next time. Just a simple visit to a park across town will do, or a trip to the Dairy Queen for a Dilly Bar. Not big excursions, but an opportunity for you to say to your child, "Why don't we share by inviting Jessica from across the street to go with us?"

My mother used to take us to a farm to get peaches for canning, or out into the woods to pick blackberries for jam. Every single time, she told us that we really ought to buy a few extra peaches, or pick a few extra blackberries for Mrs. Dickinson, an elderly lady who lived across the street from us. My sister and I loved delivering the fruit to our neighbor and were always looking for other neighbors who looked too frail to go out picking blackberries for themselves, either.

With many homeless shelters branching out to house families as well as single persons, a good learning experience for children is to encourage them to spend some of their own money on crayons, pencils, paper, and other school supplies for the children who are living in a local shelter. Sharing with members of your own family is always good, but sharing with truly needy persons is even better.

Periodically go through your children's closets with them to choose things they have outgrown, or toys they no longer play with for donating to thrift shops. Take the kids with you to make the donation, and explain how some people don't have as much money as your family does and how the things you are donating will make it possible for them to buy things at a lower cost. Never pass up an opportunity like this to tell your children how proud you are that they are willing to share their things with others. Your approval will make them seek even more opportunities to share in the future.

Those are just a few of the ideas that have worked well in my own family when it comes to teaching the concept of sharing to kids. I'm sure, if you look around your home, you will be able to find many more. Sadly, our world already has plenty of children being raised with the, "What's in it for me?" attitude. I think it's far past time for us to start raising young citizens who care about other people and who are willing to share a portion of what they have with those less fortunate than themselves.