ToddlerTrail.com

Lately, we’ve been going on some pretty large play dates.  Large play dates are fun, but they’re always chaotic, and I don’t think Buttercup has been responding well to them.  Just two weeks ago, she was thriving in the large play date environment.  Suddenly, she’s just not happy in them.  She becomes protective of what she’s playing with and really doesn’t want to share.  We’ve talked about this, and she knows that if she doesn’t share a communal toy, she can’t have it.  It’s a tough one to deal with really, because she’s in a group with a lot of two and three year olds.  No one wants to share.  So, while I’m asking her to share something, she’s looking over her shoulder at the child who just took the baby doll from her.  Then, she looks at me, like what, are you kidding me?  When she shares, the other child takes the toy and won’t give it back.  It’s a challenging situation, and I have to find the balance.

I’ve found that when she’s in a play date with one or two children - we have so much more success, because it’s generally a calmer and more controlled scene.  When you get upwards of six two/three year olds, it can get so ugly fast.  They’re all almost in a frenzy of ownership, afraid that another child will get to a toy before them, take a toy away from them, or they just won’t have a chance to play with one of the common favorites.

There’s a boy in particular who is always at these play dates.  He’s really a very sweet little boy until he isn’t.  It’s like a total flip of the coin in a second.  Anyway, the last play date we were at, he hit her twice in the head with a toy before I could remove her from the situation.  Basically, I think the problem was that all the kids were jigged up, in a large group, and out of control.  She didn’t want to play with his cars with him, and he took his truck and hit her twice with it.  I suppose this is all part of the process of “socializing” children, but we’re going to drop it down to one-on-one play dates for a while.  When we’ve done this, the same children are so much more loving and kind with one another.  It’s not a whirl of keyed up kids, it becomes a nice friendly afternoon.  I feel pretty confident about this - it’ll be a better arena for her to learn, share, and socialize.  We’ll still do large play dates once in a while, but we’re going to switch the focus from large groups to one-on-one play.

Share and Enjoy: