As a child, I remember gawking at a classmate’s Crayola collection during art class. I had perfectly serviceable Pentel crayons, but having previously seen the glossy, bright Crayola boxes only in American TV shows, I yearned to try them.

I also thought my Colleen twin-head colour pencils were cool until I saw a 60-piece Faber-Castell colour pencil set for the first time.

“Can I borrow your colour pencil?” was usually met with a generous “yes” – albeit sometimes with certain conditions, such as time limits of a few minutes for each use, or having to close my eyes while using the borrowed item. (The indisputable logic of eight-year-olds.)

Looking back, we were learning to set our own boundaries among ourselves. We shared our resources with each other, but with our own rules, limitations and options.

The difference was that those rules were set by us.

When a parent steps in and speaks for a child who is assumed to be too young to voice their own “terms” of sharing, the dynamic inevitably changes.

Often, I’ve observed that the scenario presented to the child transforms from “How would you like to share?” to “Would you like to share?” 

Not sharing at all becomes a much more viable and appealing possibility to a child who may not have considered it in the first place.

BOUNDARIES DON’T MEAN SELFISHNESS

Still, there are times when an adult’s presence can make a difference for the better.

A couple years ago, we were at the pool with my oldest daughter Lily, who was about three years old at the time. We didn’t have any pool toys with us, so we asked the family playing next to us if we could borrow a ball.

The little girl who owned the ball said “no”, even though she wasn’t playing with it at that moment. Her mother smiled at Lily and said, “Sorry, she’s not ready to share her ball just yet.”

Lily was crestfallen, but I explained to her that the toy belonged to someone else, and that we couldn’t just take it because we wanted it. Next time, I promised her, we’d remember to take along our own toys to the pool.