grabbing from the grabber

[twinkletoes]

hello i'm new to the discussion of these situations.. we rather instinctively GD, but it sure is becoming more complicated as my son grows. now he's 25months old, with a 5 month old sister.

we've been going to a drop-in playgroup & he is increasingly grabbing/shoving to get the toys he wants. i crouch and say things like "i know you want that toy honey, it's hard but you have to wait your turn, you can't grab or shove because it hurts people, how about playing with x over there" but it's happening more and more & it's starting to feel like i'm micro-managing his play and behaviour. please i don't want to be a micro-managing parent!
we just moved cities, but my girlfriend and i used to mainly let our boys just be (providing it wasn't too extreme and there were no glaring instigating factors like fatigue, hunger, sickness..) there'd be a bit of fighting
.3

[twinkletoes]

sorry! my son submitted that before i finished it, and i see that a very similar thread was just posted too!

anyway, they seemed to work it out pretty well, and ended up playing together better than with with any other kids their age - it was sometimes very physical play, but usually with shrieks of glee!

but i don't know the parents too well at the playgroup & i think there are too many kids for them to really get to know each other well & learn to play together. IS play group good for socialization at this age?

so my son grabbed a push-toy from a girl. i was right there, crouched with him and said that she was playing with it, that he had to wait his turn, and had my hand with his on the handle while i was asking him to return it to her. the girl seemed irritated with him, but ok, but her mom rushed in (and without acknowledging us) yanked the toy from both our hands gave it back to her girl, consoling her. so whatever, this seems a poor solution to me. i tell my son there are many toys that nobody is using & he finds a plastic shopping cart AND PROCEEDS TO RAM IT INTO THE LITTLE GIRL AND HER CROUCHING MOM!! ouch. a new level of violence for him, tears and hate arrows from that pair, me apologizing and telling my son that ramming HURTS people and he can't play like that. i decided just to leave the whole situation & go home.

it's really come to me that i need a better thought out approach to the hitting & grabbing issue, i just haven't seen too many approaches that i respect or that seem to address the whole issue (like me occasionally grabbing from him when he's got something he unsafe, or parents grabbing back toys from kids who grabbed toys.... you know?)

any insights or suggestions? it looks like there is some good discussion on this board and i'll be checking out some of those book list recommendations too! thanks!

[Fianna]

That is a hard one! First, your son's behavior is very normal, as you know. I think you were very lucky to have had the experience you did before you moved and very smart to have let them work it out themselves when possible.

The mom at your playgroup who snatched the toy back was just wrong! Your son probably slammed them with the cart because he was angry at the mom's mistreatment of him. You are teaching him, correctly, not to snatch and here comes a grownup who snatches from him! I'd be pissed off too if I were him!:LOL However, I don't think you are micromanaging by keeping an eye on him in those situations. Some toddlers are just more physical and assertive and they need to be watched closely until they develop some impulse control. You won't have to watch him closely forever. I know the playgroups that we have been in that were enjoyable for us were the ones where the moms stayed on top of (or at least very aware of) their assertive toddlers. Since my girls were/are always the ones having things taken from them, or being bullied in some way, I really appreciated those other moms keeping an eye on their little ones.

At 2-yr-old playing together is really a relative term. They are more likely to engage in parallel play. I honestly don't know that 2-yr-olds *need* socialization. Personally, I tend to think not, but I imagine you'll get some different opinons here on that topic.