Ask the Experts: When Sharing is Not a Virtue
TAV Reader: We’ve taught our children to share. Now that my daughter is in elementary school we’ve found a grey area. The children are allowed to bring snacks for recess and I always pack one for my child. However, many other children don’t bring their own snacks and expect to eat my daughter’s snack. Some of them ask politely, some not so much. Either way my daughter feels pressured and obligated to share and ends up with very little snack for herself. She’s even asked me to pack more snacks for the other kids! I told her this is their parents’ job and she should tell the kids to bring their own so they can all share, but it hasn’t changed a thing. How can I teach her that it’s not her responsibility to feed her classmates without contradicting the idea that sharing is a virtue?
Merriam: Teaching children to share is one of parenting’s greatest natural challenges. It goes against a child’s natural survival instinct and her natural developmental stage of being me-centered. So if your child is feeling compelled to share, you should congratulate yourself on your successful cultivation of her empathy.
That being said, sharing food at school is a different story. For numerous reasons, including food allergies, nutrition plans, germ spreading, and the very challenges your daughter is facing, most schools have a no-sharing policy – although it is difficult to enforce and rarely policed.
I would encourage you to approach her teacher with her dilemma. If she is a good teacher, it should provide for a terrific teachable moment for the class on when it is and is not appropriate to share, while reminding the class of the no-food sharing policy. If there is no policy at her school, her teacher should still be able to help you.
At the very least, you can empower your daughter by suggesting she tell her friends that “my mommy doesn’t allow me to share my food anymore, but you can come for a playdate and have a snack at my house sometime.” If she is uncomfortable saying that, another option is to put a little extra in a separate container which can be her “sharing container” – once it is empty, sharing is over. Good luck and let us know how it goes.
Please send your own questions to our resident experts, Melissa and Merriam at experts@takesavillage.net!. Check out their bios for more info on their credentials.
