Let's imagine the following scene: we are on the beach, with our 2 and a half year old daughter and a ball, a bucket and a couple of paddles.
A boy about the same age approaches, interested in our daughter's ball. He makes a move to take it but its rightful owner is not willing to share it. Almost certainly then, some close adult will say or at least think that “you have to learn to share".
But are we sure this is so? Do you have to learn to share? Is generosity learned? Do we want our daughter to share because we impose it on her or because she is born to do so?
Our children they can learn to share if we teach them by example. And we can also trust that when the time comes, they will do it because they feel the desire. Because by doing so, they will expand relationships with other children.
Children under 3 do not understand what sharing is. They don't know what private property is, they don't understand the meaning of “yours”. For them, everything is “mine”.
Not because they are selfish, but because they are going through a period of their development marked by the egocentrism. The world revolves around them. The sun rises because they wake up, the moon, because they go to sleep. Everything is "mine", they do not understand that there may be something that is not theirs.
And will this always be like this? Will you never share anything? Should we do something to overcome this self-centeredness?
There's no need. This self-centeredness will overcome you by maturation. There will come a day, around the age of 3 or 4, when he will realize that sharing his objects with other children does not mean that they lose them, but that in this way, the possibilities of company and play are expanded. In a genuine way, without any adult saying "you have to learn to share."
Children are generous, but they need us to give them time, to respect their own individual maturation rhythm.
True generosity is a feeling that is born, not an educational imposition.