Teaching Only Child to Share

So this is more a long-term plan (probably really start at 3-4, he is currently 7 months), but I wanted to bounce this idea off this group. So right now I plan to have a strategy of my wife and myself “owning” my sons toys. The toys will be split into categories of my wife's, my son's and mine.   My Son's Toys: will be very basic toys that he can “always” play with for example stuffed animals. Things that do not require supervision.   Wife's toys: will be toys that need supervision, but might be things she enjoys but more realistically (she’s not much of a play person) – messy toys. This example would be markers. We don’t want my son to be left alone with markers, but we obviously want him to play with them.   My toys will be “dangerous” toys and toys that I actually want to play with him. These toys for example could be like hot wheels, or maybe little robot kits, chemistry kits, tools, etc.   The purpose of this is twofold; first it is an “organic” way to “lock away” the toys we don’t want him to have 24/7, but the real underlying reason is that it gives him a reason to want to learn to share. We will only have one kid (this was my red line in the sand on the condition that I agree to 1 instead of 0 😉) and teaching him to share will be a bit tricky.   If you are a kid and you own everything, sharing will simply mean “letting someone take” your toys, candy, etc. Also I have never been a fan of “sharing” food, you don’t get it back (at least I hope not 😉). Instead of making sharing out to be a negative we should show the inherit positives.  Sure, sometimes you lose out on something - or don’t have it for a bit - but when people share you also get access to things that you normally wouldn’t.If there are toys that I enjoy playing with him, it will make logical sense that I “own” them because I enjoy them and when he wants to play together we can, and when he wants to play with them without me, borrowing/sharing again makes sense.Another way I plan to show sharing is with the library. I think this will make him see the value and virtue of sharing, else honestly,  the logical conclusion is sharing means someone is stealing my stuff and I get yelled at if I get upset. Another added benefit of us “owning” the toys is when he starts to outgrow toys it we can set a good example of donating the toys we “own” that we know he clearly never plays with. This might make him feel once again like he is not simply losing, but he is following our example.   Sorry for the ramble, but I kind of had to debug my process and I am a very longwinded person. Hopefully you enjoy data dumps 😃 via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/3q3JUt3