Help with 18 month old who won't let friend touch any of her toys...

[SarahDC]

This toddler thing is all new to me! A whole new world! My DD had her little friend over yesterday for the first time in a few months, and it was a disaster. She completely lost (huge tantrums) it if he so much as touched any of her toys. Complete meltdown. We finally just went outside and they did just fine outside away from her toys!

I don't know how best to handle this. She goes to daycare and shares just fine there, and shares just fine at her friend's house. It's sharing her own stuff that she obviously can't handle. How do I handle this? I basically just held her to prevent her from ripping her toys out of her friend's hands. And she screamed.

I would also love any book recommendations for this age. It seems like everything I read is more for 2-3 year olds and she doesn't understand that much yet.

Thanks mamas!

[ElliesMomma]

maybe try getting together with an older child. and let that child model sharing for your LO. 

good luck!

Edited by ElliesMomma - 5/28/11 at 10:21pm

[Bird Girl]

You can't explain very much to an 18 month old, so I would try to ride this stage out by managing it, rather than addressing it. Is the weather warming up where you live? Can you have playdates at the park or outside?

In just three or four months, she may be a lot more amenable to the concept of sharing--give it a little time.

[mary934]

maybe you could try and do some problem solving with her and find out what are her concerns 

1 Mom:  I have noticed or I see when you play with friends at home , you don't like to share your toys , what's up 

2 If she does not know or is not very verbal - you can come up with 6 tentative suggestions of what her concerns may be. -  are you afraid she will break the toys 

                              she won't give it back when you won't to play with it 

                               you want some toys only for you , not  for sharing etc 

possible solutions  - some toys for friends and some toys when she is alone 

mary

[SarahDC]

Thanks for the replies everyone. We definitely want to work on this. I think the suggestion of older kids is a good one, we'll try that.

[UmmRiyam]

My daughter was exactly the same way.  She still is over her blankie.  I think it will just take some time for her to get used to sharing her own toys. 

[Shaki]

My DD was the same way at that age. It's normal, so don't stress over it too much.

What really worked for us was not focusing on this sort of blanket "you must share" directive, and instead trying to see things through her eyes. For example if I was reading a magazine and my friend came up and ripped it out of my hands I'd be pretty upset and the friend would be way out of line. Likewise if my friend came over to my house and started looking thru my closet and trying on my clothes--without asking--i'd think they were pretty rude and invasive, yet we adults seem to expect toddlers to be "nice" and "share" when the same thing happens to them. That's just to help put it in perspective: sometimes we expect little ones to be cool with stuff that adults would definitely not be cool with. On the other hand no one wants to play with someone who spends the entire time basically saying "don't touch that!" so we have to help little ones play together in a way that is fun for both (or all) of them.

In any case in these situations it can help to work on this stuff with a child around the same age who's mom is also a good friend of yours so that you can agree on some ground rules and mutually enforce them. My sister and I had the following set of guidelines which we agreed on ahead of time and mutually enforced when DD and my niece played together:

no forced sharing--meaning we adults did not force a child to share something against their will. Instead we helped the kids negotiate trades or take turns.

no taking a toy out of someone else's hands. Whoever is holding the toy is the one who has it, if the other child wants it they may ask for a turn or offer a trade. If someone snatched a toy out of someone else's hand we intervened and returned it to whoever was holding it initially.

If a toy is so special that it cannot be shared or touched by someone else that toy is put away before the playdate. So I would walk around the house with DD and we would put away anything she couldn't bear to have someone else touch. Now, that didn't mean that she wouldn't have a meltdown over something she had previously agreed the other kid could play with, it just meant she maybe had a few less meltdowns than she might have otherwise had, :) .

I think those were the main ones. It was sometimes hard work but the results were worth it. Not that they were perfect and polite and always played peacefully, but they did develop the skills to be able to talk things thru and find ways to work things out.

[SarahDC]

Shaki thanks so much - that was really helpful. That's a great idea to put away some stuff, I should have thought of that. He wasn't even taking things from my DD - she just flipped when he touched any of her stuff. If I'd let her, she would have ripped everything he touched out of his hands. So I restrained her, and she screamed. Good times

But hopefully next time will be better.

[tessa67]

I think 18 mo is very young to expect any sharing behavior. 

[ssh]

Originally Posted by SarahDC 

Thanks for the replies everyone. We definitely want to work on this. I think the suggestion of older kids is a good one, we'll try that.

It's the age and she shares communal toys at daycare so you really don't need to work on this. It will happen with age. Even two year old children play by each other instead of with each other. Once she's old enough to find the friend more important than her things she'll share, probably by 2.5 or 3 for short periods of time.  Playing with an older child works well because the older child plays with the younger one, not their toys.