We're in the MINE Phase! Help!

J.,

I think the other poster is right; what you do is going to depend on her maturity. If she's not going to understand what you're saying, you should just skip it and non-emotionally take the object from her hands and wait for her to grow a little bit more.
If you think she may understand some reasoning, you could try what we do. I started by saying "Honey, we share in this house". And then I would very conciously play with toys and then give them to her, saying the same thing. "Here, Honey! We share in this house" The big thing was that I made a point of picking two or three really special toys that she DIDN'T have to share. She knows that her leapster or her Cinderella doll are off limits to her little brother. But everything else is fair game. That way, when my little girl starts fingering my jewelry box, I had something to fall back on that could be mine and not sharable.

Now that she's three and understanding reasoning and a little empathy, it's a little easier. On playdate days, when we have a quiet moment before our friends come over, I sit her down and we have a talk. "Remember when we went to Max's house and he shared all his toys? Didn't that make you feel good and happy? How would have felt if Max wouldn't let you play with his toys? ..." etc etc. And again, I take two or three toys away from sight so that they are hers and only hers and not in the playdate mix.

Good luck to you. I know it's frustrating, but it gets easier, I promise!

J.

Hey J.!

The best advice I ever got about dealing with kids works across the board, espcially for kids at this age. Tell her what you want her to do, not what you want her to stop doing. That being said, she will not be ready at this age to really understand too much talk about "sharing" so you must be simple and concrete. Try to make your stand about the tantrum (a concrete behavior) and not about the less concrete concept of "sharing."

You should avoid asking her why she did something you don't want her to do, this gives them the idea that why they do what they do matters, and if they are breaking a rule, it does not really matter why! If you don't get started on this path, you will never have to go back and figure out how to quit negotiating with children about what is right and what is wrong (trust me, it is really hard once they are 8 or 9 to stop them from pleading their case!)

Keep putting her in her room when she tantrums, and stay calm about it, she will learn to deal with frustration as she ages. Most of all, praise her to the hilt when she does not have a trantrum. Try to set her up for sucess, so that she can feel like she is in control of the choices she has to tantrum or not. Catch her in the act of being a sucess; find something that she can share without a fight, and make her like how it feels to make you happy with her more than she likes to keep everything to herself, but keep the tantrum and the concept of sharing separate.

By the time she is really old enough to understand a concept that is not concrete, she may be able to share just fine. You may have to stick it out for a while, the worst time for the "mine" behavior is usually age 3 (if I can see it, it's mine!)

Stick with it, it may not get better right away, but what you do now will pay off later (either way you go...)

M.

Haha, we went through that for a few months around that age too. Our son would do that mainly to his older brother. All we did was keep talking to him and teaching him empathy (That's not nice. How would you feel if ...? See, x is hurt, he's so sad). He had pretty mature verbal and cognitive skills early so talking to him worked. If your daughter is not verbal yet, then I think you'd just have to weather through it. It's usually frustration from them being unable to express all they're feeling. I would say, distraction is about the only other thing I could think of to do. Good luck !

HI J.,

I completely relate. Now, she is very clear (for now) on what is mama's, dada's, brother's etc.
However, the last few times I had people over she was awful, she grabs toys out of children's hands, scream if they try to take something away, watch the children like a hawk to protect her stuff, anything the other child wants to play with, she wants....
If she snatches something from her brother - she's 22m he's 11m - I make her give it back. If someone is playing, I make her wait her turn as she squirms and whines :)

I wonder if you'll get a magic formula from a veteran mom :)