Sharing isn't Always Caring: Rethinking the Rules of Toddler Kindness

I hate it when you tell my kid (or yours) to 'just share'. Here's why.

A few months ago, I was at the playground with my son when his eyes locked on a very cool, very sparkly bubble wand. My son walked over to the little girl, who was playing with her wand, watching bubbles pour out of it. He excitedly started to chase the bubbles around.

The girl’s mother noticed, and immediately told her daughter to give my kid a turn — not in an overly demanding way, but in a way that made it clear that sharing was important.

Reluctantly, her daughter handed over the bubble wand to my son. I’m not sure he even wanted to play with it — he was more mesmerized by what it could do.

“I don’t know if our friend was ready to give you a turn,” I said to my son. “Do you want to give it a quick try, and we can give it back?”. It quickly became clear that powering this toy was slightly too advanced for him, this playground ‘friend’ was few months older than him after all. He fumbled with it, handed it back to me, and said, “All done”.

I gave the toy back to its rightful owner, thanking the little girl for giving us a turn, even when she was still playing with it.

This has happened many times, and we’ve been on both sides of the equation. And each time we’re involved in a sharing dynamic, I have some of the same thoughts. I don’t think sharing is always, immediately, and inherently the right answer, and don’t like it when we tell kids they need to share, despite all else.

So I’m just going to come right out and say it — I dislike the narrow focus on demanding toddlers share with each other on an adult’s (or another child’s) terms.

not our toy bus.

I actually like it when a kid is protective of their things, and find saying something like “it looks like this friend wants to play with their toys alone right now, and they’re not ready to share — that’s okay, because the toy belongs to them, so they get to make the rules”. So far, my kid has never gotten upset by that and understands. More often than not, the ‘friend’ will find us and give my kid a turn.

Don’t get me wrong — I think sharing is a really important skill to learn, and kids should, ultimately, understand how to share. Sharing and taking turns are wonderful things. My issue is more with the language and narrative around it, and how we expect kids at an age that don’t quite understand the concept to do so.

I see this often: Kid A has a toy that Kid B is interested. An adult notices and tells Kid A to share. In the best cases, Kid A gives up their toy/stick/whatever for Kid B to play with. Often, Kid A is not done playing with their toy and puts up a fight.

And honestly? That’s understandable. I would do the same thing.

The cognitive load required to context switch that quickly — to put something down, stop whatever you’re doing mid-thought, and hand it over to someone else — would be difficult for many adults to manage. Why do we expect humans who’ve been alive for less than a thousand days to be able to handle this with grace?

According to something I’ve read on the internet more than once¹, sharing isn’t actually a concept kids can fully grasp until somewhere around three and four. I don’t claim to be a child development expert (despite minoring in education), but I totally buy into that.

And I’m not alone. When I first started writing this essay (back in June²), I asked fellow Substackers for their thoughts on sharing.

The majority of thoughts and anecdotes seem to mimic some of my own thoughts.

As a society, we often put expectations on children’s behavior and don’t hold adults to the same standards. Sharing is probably my favorite example of that (but not the only one).

We would never ask another adult to immediately give up something they’re using to placate someone else. Ever. That would be insane behavior. This comment from Therapy Truck illustrates this idea beautifully:

I don’t think it’s fair that we ask that of kids. I’m not saying it isn’t important for kids to learn how to share resources and enjoy the same toys, but telling a kid they need to share, immediately, when they are still using it, bothers me.

I have many versions of the bubble wand story, and some when my kid is on the ‘expecting to share’ end. I’ve said, more than once, to a kid, “Oh! It doesn’t look like we’re done using it yet, but we can give you a turn in a few minutes, when we’re finished”. I used to do it a bit more quietly, but I was inspired by this comment from Sabrina Molu. So ‘loudly’ has been my approach, and it seems to work.

At first, I wasn’t sure how this would come off with other parents, but as soon as I explained myself, other parents seemed to get it.

I think demanding our kids give up their stuff to make some other kids happy isn’t good manners or generosity — it’s just teaching compliance and bad boundaries.

It’s teaching our kids that it’s okay for someone to approach them and take what they want. It teaches kids that others’ needs come first. It teaches them to be people pleasers.

On the flip side, it also teaches them that they can have whatever they want in the name of ‘sharing’. It teaches them that if they want something, their needs come first.

I can’t help but think about the long-term cost of teaching kids to ignore their own cues in favor of social harmony, and, personally, I don’t want my kid walking away with those lessons.

Again, I am not against sharing. I think we need to rethink our approach to it³.

I want my kid to learn how to share with others, but I also want him to feel confident in saying, “I’m still playing with this! I’d love to give you a turn when I’m done”. That subtlety feels important. It teaches patience and autonomy.

I loved the concept of something being ‘unavailable’, which is something Jane Stephens Rosenthal Cooke shared with me. I don’t always remember to say this, but when I have, it’s been really successful!

I want my son to learn to share because he wants to do just that — share an experience with someone. Sharing should be about showing someone something, giving them an experience that you feel, and forming a mutual connection over what’s being shared. Adults share meals, share stories, share friends, share experiences, share clothes, share luggage, and so on. And we do this in a way that ensures all parties are getting something out of it.

Kids share toys — and we often don’t care whether or not the kid sharing is enjoying the experience. Actually, I’d argue we ultimately don’t care about that.

I’m not saying kids should only share when they 100% want to. That would probably result in a bunch of kids never sharing with each other. But we also shouldn’t just share because it’s considered “nice”.

As I often say, nice is different than kind⁴.

Sharing because it’s expected, regardless of how you feel about it, is nice (on the surface). Sharing because you see a kid wanting to play with something, and you want them to have fun with you, is kind. Do I think a 2-year-old completely grasps this? No. However, I believe managing this messaging can begin early.

Being nice is telling your friend you like her shirt, even if you don’t actually like it, to not hurt her feelings. Being kind is about acknowledging why she’d like the shirt and perhaps recommending something that could work even better. Or if it’s a really close friend (or you’re beautifully direct), the kindest thing you can do is tell her that her shirt is fugly.

Ten times out of ten, I like to think I’d choose being kind over being nice.

But I know that’s not always the case.

At one of our many backyard barbecues, my son was playing with another toddler. My kid had just started playing with a toy that the other wanted, and my son declined (to be fair, he could’ve been less ‘toddler’ about it, but I digress…). A friend — who’s not a parent, which feels slightly relevant here — jumped in. “You have to share! It’s nice to take turns,” she said, taking the toy from my kid’s hand and giving it to his friend.

In that moment, I didn’t know what to say. I was observing it from afar and was torn between helicoptering and standing up for my kid. I am not exaggerating when I say he had just started playing with it. Doesn’t ‘taking turns’ imply that the first kid gets a turn to begin with?

I opened my mouth and started to say, “Let’s let [friend] have a turn when [my kid]’s done playing with it,” but instead found myself muttering, “he wasn’t fucking finished,” under my breath. To be honest, I wasn’t in the mood to explain my sharing philosophy to fucking [name redacted], and my kid moved on quickly and so I decided to let it go.

I like to think I would’ve felt the same way if the roles were reversed, and have the lived data to back that up. I actually think I would’ve been more likely in that moment to give the toy back to the other kid for a bit — for some reason, it’s easier for me to ask patience of my son than of other kids (but, I’m working on that — this was a few months ago and I do think I’d respond differently today).

Ultimately, I want my kid to be happy, well-adjusted, and able to interact with other kids. I want him to be a good sharer, but I also want him to understand the nuance of saying “yes, you can play with this — just please wait until I’m done”.

There are going to be many more situations where my kid is asked to share, and others where he is asking someone else to share, and I hope he grows to find the patience, clarity, understanding, and compassion around both.

If you’ve ever felt weird about sharing, I just want you to know you’re not alone. Know that there’s at least one person (me) who believes in the power and importance of sharing, while also honoring the experience of the ‘sharer’. And maybe, we’ll find each other on the playground one day. 🫶

1. One example

2. I was laid off the day after I posted that Note, and this fell off my radar, but I think I actually have learned a lot and experienced even more of this since then. So it’s a situation where the distance was good!

3. I am reiterating this because, as with most things on the internet, nuance seems to be getting harder and harder for our brains to comprehend.

4. Or as Stephen Sondheim wrote in Into the Woods, nice is different than good.