No, I am not referring to blended families that are sadly more and more common these days. I am referring to TOYS! Since Christmas just passed us by, I am sure many families were gifted with many toys and I thought this would be an appropriate time to share how we deal with toys.
How do you handle toys in your family? Unless you have only one child, you will have multiple toys for multiple children. Do the toys belong to the child it was gifted to only, or do the toys get immediately thrown into the communal toy box/shelf? Hence my question in the title – who do the toys belong to?
In the past, I used to buy into the thinking that in order for the children to learn to share and be unselfish, the toys have to go into the communal lot. It is EVERYBODY’s toy although the toy car was gifted to ONE child. I would allow the child to have exclusive rights to the toy for perhaps a few days or a week and then it goes into the toy box/shelf it is assigned to and then anybody can play with it as and when they liked. It is now everyone’s toy.
Then I read more and thought more and observed more. And I realised that the above “method” was not a fair, practical nor realistic one. And it actually developed a nonchalant attitude about looking after the toys.
After all, why should I bother to look after the toy if the others playing with it are not. And it didn’t require the child to learn to share! It is a bit like communism 😀
So there was an about turn. Now the child gets to keep the toy that he is given and whoever wants to play with it has to ask for permission to play with it. And then after play time is over, the person has to returned it to the owner or put it away (depending on the negotiation terms with the owner 😛 )
This way, the owner learns to be unselfish every time he is asked permission to share his toy. And he also learns to be discerning about who to lend his toy to! Lol! The owner also learns to be responsible for his toy. He has to look after it or it will be taken away.
What if the child refuses to lend the toy? I usually will step in, if it is a much younger child asking for permission. I will explain to the borrower that the toy does belongs to the owner and it is the owner’s prerogative to refuse to lend it out. So the borrower learns to accept “no” graciously. Remember, Just because he said “please” doesn’t mean he gets it.
Separately, I will have a chat with the owner about being generous and kind. I will also try to find out why he didn’t want to lend out the toy – it could be a very special toy or the borrower has not been good at keeping his end of the bargain in putting away the toy in the proper place or worse, the borrower often returns the toy broken or dirtied.
Either way, both get to learn important life lessons that can’t be learnt if the toy is just chucked into the communal lot.
How do you deal with the toys your children get over Christmas and other special occasions?