having a hard time with grabbing

[moonpie's_mama]

background info: my mom is my best friend, and is the epitome of AP/GD. she and my stepdad have a 26-month-old daughter. my dd, 16 mos. old, and my sister (i don't do that half-sister stuff) are best buds. i go over to my mom's every night and the girls play together wonderfully. we are so excited to see them grow up together.

now, my sister is 2, so OF COURSE there are issues with sharing, grabbing, pushing, hitting, etc. - from my dd as well, who is adorably starting to exert her little will! my mom is so wise and experienced, but even she is at a loss for how to handle her dd grabbing from my dd.

here is how it usually goes down:
micah (my dd) is holding a toy. maya (my sis) rips it from her hand. my mom says calmly, "maya, grabbing isn't okay," and, basically, grabs it out of maya's hand to hand it back to micah. maya USUALLY loses it, but sometimes remains calm enough to listen as my mom suggests a trade - then, maya will go find another toy and trade it with micah. micah, at this point in her life, doesn't care what she's holding as long as it's something fun, so this usually works, and everyone is happy again.

the problem is, my mom doesn't feel right "grabbing" the toy from maya to show her that grabbing it from micah was wrong! she ALSO does not feel right allowing maya to yank it out of micah's hands without some kind of consequence. it is not enough to her to say "grabbing isn't nice" but let maya keep the toy. i also do not want dd to have everything she picks up yanked out of her hands - that's not right, either.

so... what's the solution?! our heads are spinning, and my mom asked me to post this issue and see what all you wise mamas think.

this is also of great interest to me, because when my dd reaches the grabbing age, i want to be prepared and know how i want to handle it!

[blsilva]

I'm anxiouly waiting for replies to this, too. My 2 sons, 4 & 2, do this to each other all day long, and I'm never sure how to handle it. Grabbing the toy back to give it back to the kid who had it first seems wrong, but so does letting the child who took it keep it. Either way, someone is upset & crying. :

[Dal]

Here's what we're doing. I don't have a lot to offer about when sharing incidents occur. My son is 2.5. If someone yanks something for his hands and does not give it back quickly, he gets so upset that there is no point talking about anything right there and he usually just wants to leave the scene. This may seem like an extreme response, but he is just not used to this type of interactio. If Simon were to grab something from someone else's hand, it would depend on how that child reacted. There was a scene at a train table at Chapter's awhile ago. Simon walked up and yanked a train piece right out of another child's hand. About 10 seconds later Simon was in my arms crying and I had no idea what I had done, it happened so fast. I think that I swopped in and said "Oh, Simon! That boy was playing with that train and you grabbed it right out of his hands!" and he let go of the train but was upset that he wasn't able to play with it. If he didn't get so upset, we could have tried to work something out with the other child, but this train table is just so cool that most of the time when it must be shared none of the children want to share -- not to mention that it tends to be the only toy there and not all that conducive to sharing (the children want all the train carts connected to each other), which I think makes it a particularly volatile situation.

Anyway... what works best for us is to discuss sharing and grabbing when Simon is in a good or neutral mood. He enjoys this. We do it in a number of ways. I ask him how he would respond if someone grabbed something out of his hands. This gives him an idea of how to respond when it actually happens. We play it a lot and when he tries to, or actually, grabs something out of my hands, I bring it up then and we talk about it (playfully). He's learning. I don't expect him to learn this overnight, but I see progress. I also see that when he's playing with his toys on his own he goes over the ideas and practices. He really wants to share; he just finds it hard to do. When we go to Chapters now and he plays with the train table, we can see how badly he wants to share. He starts to look anxiously around for something that might help to distract him from the train. Even if he doesn't get much further than that yet, and still finds it really hard to share -- e.g., often opting to just wait until a child is done with the table than try to share with her/him -- this is a big improvement. So I guess, in short, I'm suggesting a lot of playful discussions and play acting (with yourselves, with toys, whatever is fun and keeps the child's attention and interest), and to be patient.

We also don't force Simon to share his favourite toys, or any of his toys for that matter. He shares everything but a select couple of gems, and is starting to let go of his need to keep those to himself. In that case too, we talked about how to tell someone that he didn't want to share that item. What he ended up choosing to do is to make a lovey/hugging gesture over the item and say that it's special to him, and then offer the other child another item. There haven't been any issues with this. If there were, Simon would be happy to put his favourite toys away during playdates with other children.

I hope there is something helpful in there!

[moonpie's_mama]

Originally Posted by Dal

... what works best for us is to discuss sharing and grabbing when Simon is in a good or neutral mood. He enjoys this. We do it in a number of ways. I ask him how he would respond if someone grabbed something out of his hands. This gives him an idea of how to respond when it actually happens. We play it a lot and when he tries to, or actually, grabs something out of my hands, I bring it up then and we talk about it (playfully). He's learning. I don't expect him to learn this overnight, but I see progress.

i really like the idea of talking about it a lot when the issue's not directly at hand - when the child is in a neutral place about it. i'm definitely going to suggest this to my mom, and do this myself with dd when the time comes! and knowing my little sister, i think this will really help her, because in the moment her emotions run way too high to really think about it right then, or even directly after...

Originally Posted by Dal

We also don't force Simon to share his favourite toys, or any of his toys for that matter. He shares everything but a select couple of gems, and is starting to let go of his need to keep those to himself. In that case too, we talked about how to tell someone that he didn't want to share that item. What he ended up choosing to do is to make a lovey/hugging gesture over the item and say that it's special to him, and then offer the other child another item. There haven't been any issues with this. If there were, Simon would be happy to put his favourite toys away during playdates with other children.

this has also been very important to my mom - to make sure that before dd and i arrive, maya puts away any toys or dolls she does not feel like sharing. i think this is awesome. there's no reason a child should be forced to share every single thing they own! to me, it's perfectly acceptable, and very respectful of the child, to allow them the discretion of which things they want to share and which things are just too special to them.


thanks for responding... the wheels are starting to turn...

[moonpie's_mama]

Originally Posted by blsilva

Grabbing the toy back to give it back to the kid who had it first seems wrong, but so does letting the child who took it keep it. Either way, someone is upset & crying.

exactly! :

[Emmom]

When a similar question was posted a little while ago, someone provided this article link: http://www.cnvc.org/grabbing.htm.
It's been really helpful to me, and so far having faith that even tiny children can work it out if you have faith that they will has been working for me... most of the time. Anyway, it works often enough to keep using it. I find it is especially effective if all the adults paying attention are on board with this type of negotiation, which it sounds like you and your mom are! Good luck!

[Dal]

I find that NVC article, and NVC helpful when the children are calm enough to listen. In situations when things escalate very quickly, I'm often at a loss about how to use NVC. It seems more that the conflict just passes and we discuss it after the fact. If Simon has something grabbed out of his hands, and it's something that he thinks is awesome, his typical response it to start crying very loudly and want to leave the scene. I've also experienced trying to use NVC with a child who had grabbed an item from Simon twice. He was not at all engaging in the conversation and seemed totally unconcerned about Simon being so upset or about me telling him that Simon had been playing with the truck. I couldn't even establish anything close to eye contact with this child and he was running around in circles, guarding the truck he had grabbed from Simon even though he didn't want to play with it. I'm not sure how this boy is being raised. Maybe he was having an off day. Who knows. It does seem, though, that sometimes, if all a child is used to is parental control, NVC can be very difficult to use with them.