So this weekend me and Kwabi went to my mom’s house. He and my niece, Camryn, (age 5) have always played nice together. But I was curious what he would do with his beloved choo-choo trains after we had the incidents with sharing a couple weeks ago.
Of course, the fight began.
Camryn grabbed one of his trains……Kwabi snatched it back and said, “Mine!” and gathered up all his trains in his arms to prevent her from playing with any of them…..and my niece was saying, “Noooo” while trying to take it back.
So I tried the new technique of saying, “Hey, Kwabi, can you and Camryn take TURNS?” He wasn’t quite ready, so I told Camryn to give the train back to Kwabi.
About a minute later, as I was excited saying, “Yeah, how about you give Camryn a turn with your train, and she’ll let you have a turn pushing her shopping cart?!” He looked at me, and said, “Yeah!”
Then my mom wanted a “turn” and he let her play with a train, too. 🙂
So there they were: Mom, Camryn, and Kwabi pushing choo-choo trains across the living room carpet, into the kitchen, “racing” their choo-choos.
Problem: solved.
(If only for that moment).
I’ve learned that Kwabi responds well to enthusiastic encouragment with taking “turns” with his toys, and telling him that he can take turns with other kids’ toys, too.
🙂
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