Who’s Toy Is It?

The children sometimes feel that certain toys are theirs and theirs alone.   This is true for some things, such as a stuffed animal, but other things, like a scooter or bounce shoes or a cotton candy machine are more blurred lines of who's they belong to.  

Sure, one child was given the present to start, but the YoNana machine my daughter got for Christmas is available should anyone want to make banana or banana and fruit-based treats with it.  Or the Icee machine that Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret sent for Christmas (which is definitely being enjoyed by everyone) does not have a single child's name exclusively on it.  

Sometimes the children get proprietorial about things like chairs too.   The office chairs they have at their desks in the bonus room are assigned to a child in general, but it does not mean the other child can never sit in it.   If it's available and someone needs to sit, the chair can be used. 

Helping them navigate through what is shared and what is theirs and theirs alone is sometimes hard.  What we see as reasonable and obvious as adults is not always clear to them.  

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Bouncy Shoes Clash:  My son got some bouncing shoes from Uncle Jonathan and Aunt Margaret for Christmas.  These things are pretty fun and if I could get my feet in them, I'd have already tried them out.   My son isn't bouncing all the time, which means his sister can have a turn.   This is all well and good until he feels like she's annoying him.  And then she isn't allowed to use them in his mind, even though he hadn't even thought about using them at the time.  Once we told them some updated rules, they seemed okay with it, especially because it meant they got to use other things that "belonged" to their sibling.   I was surprised how well they did and how quickly the bickering stopped as soon as we explained how things, "worked in this house."