Said It Here

How to teach a toddler to share in small spaces

Toddlers don't instinctively understand shared ownership when they live in close quarters and are still learning boundaries, often leading to public meltdowns or taking other children's things. Without separate rooms to store personal belongings, parents struggle to separate private items from shared ones without constantly intervening or feeling embarrassed.

What people tried

Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.

  1. 1
    Practicing 'my turn, your turn' at home with toys and routines
  2. 2
    Sticking it out in public settings rather than leaving when embarrassed
  3. 3
    Keeping special shared toys in bedrooms and letting it be their choice whether to share
  4. 4
    Emphasizing what items belong to parents versus what items belong to the child
  5. 5
    Telling the teacher
  6. 6
    Moving away to play with another toy
  7. 7
    Reminding the other child of boundaries

In their words

Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.

“when my son says that he wants it back, the bully says something like ”ok, one second” (while looking at the lego mechanism my son made) and then when my son insists on getting his item back, the bully gets annoyed and says “go away— this is not even yours, it’s a class toy” or “you have to share, it’s my turn“ or something annoying like that.”source ↗

“my son is obviously infuriated with this classmate’s rude behavior and is sort of at a loss on what to say when this happens….”source ↗

SitaBird · r/Parenting · 8 upvotes

“Infact, she was stealing the other kids toys. We just kept correcting her until we were to embarrassed and left. How do we fit that?”source ↗

ty_durden94 · r/Parenting · 4 upvotes

“I just realized I've been giving my daughter toys with the assumption they will become shared house toys when my son is old enough to play with them.”source ↗

“I also really want to hear about people with very small living situations. "They just have their own toys in their own room" isn't a thing for us in the near future.”source ↗

JelloMany9374 · r/Parenting · 2 upvotes

Where this came up

r/Parentingchild behaviorfamily lifeparentingsibling dynamicssocial skillssocialization

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