I was recently inspired by a great post from MOMtessorilife called Why We Don’t Make Our Kids Share–And Why They Do Anyway to post our own sharing story.
My son is 13 months old and he is absolutely fascinated by the two older (2.5 and 3 years old) girls that I care for at various times during the week. Every time one of them selects something to work on, M wants to grab it immediately. This, as you can see, is not pleasing to our guests.
My first tactic was to distract M to allow the girls to concentrate. This was all in vain. I usually wound up holding him in my lap while we watched the other child work as he wiggled and reached for the items in use. Watching M react this way to their use of an item usually made the girls feel possessive and likely run away with the item. It also made M feel really great too (not)!
Even though I thought M might be to young to understand the idea of waiting until another child is done with an item, I decided to try it anyway. It actually works!
Here’s how it works:
Real Life Montessori 