Yesterday, our new neighbour popped in to introduce herself. As I showed her down the hallway to the living room, she suddenly exclaimed a loud "Wow!" and ran off into my bedroom. She reached into my open cupboard and took a dress out, held it up to herself and looked in the mirror. "I love it!" she said, putting it on. And before I could get my thoughts straight to say anything at all, she opened up my laptop, sat on my bed, and checked her email.
Oh no wait, that never happened. When would we ever expect anyone to find something like that normal and be fine with it? Ah yes… Childhood. That tender time when we request a whole host of things of our children that we would never allow anyone to ask us to deal with as adults.
I suppose how we relate to our children's desire for privacy and choice around sharing their things or not comes down to our core belief about what our true natures are, and how scared or trusting we parents are about that nature.
Are we born open, expecting to create loving bonds with others, with a natural drive to explore, expand, be useful to and connected with others as we grow up? Or are we born determined to avoid everyone but ourselves and willing to manipulate anyone to have a run of the place for the rest of our lives? I believe in the former. I also believe that we can ironically be brought up to live with the latter attitude if we are mistrusted as children.
Our very survival in early life depends on us being loved, wanted and connected with others, first with our parents, then with other family, friends and our community. We are born reaching out with all our hearts to our caregivers. We don't need to be taught socialisation, we're brilliant at it. In fact we are born so trusting, carefree and driven to explore and interact that we quite quickly need a grown up hand to slow us down, teach us not to cruise along the cooker and out into the garden without someone else there, teach us to look before running off down the street, help us to sense into another person's state of mind before walking up and showing them our new toy… And we need someone there with open arms when we need comfort because we got a little ahead of ourselves and got scared.
I believe we all naturally tend towards connection and generous sharing if we are trusted to do so in our own time.
In fact, choosing whether or not to share his toys is one of the only times our 32 month old son Elliott shows a strong preference for privacy. And I like that. So when someone is coming over for a playdate, he and I walk round the house together and put away any toys he tells me he doesn't want to share with the friend in question.
What he puts away depends on who the friend is, on how tired our son is, on how nervous or excited we all are about the visit, a host of things come into play. We also have an agreement that if he realises at any point that he really doesn't want to share something he's left out, he can bring it to me and we'll put it away. The one rule I uphold is that no-one snatches anything out of anyone else's hands.
Some days we've had conversations that go like this: "Do you want to put your fire engine in the bedroom or do you want to share it?" "Err, share it." "Are you sure? Last time we left it out you realised you really didn't want to share it after all…" "It's ok, I share it". And he does. For the most part he's relaxed and totally fine even with kids he's never met coming and taking over the house and his toys. He always has been, and I think it has a lot to do with him being encouraged to choose his own boundaries with regards to his own privacy. I've noticed recently that he wants some say in who his friends are too now, which I'm happy to honour as best I can as he is much more relaxed if he's had some choice in who is playing with his things. Aren't we all?
Don't get me wrong, we have had a few howlers, 3 memorable ones in particular when he has run around the whole time screaming "NO!!" at the other child. But it turns out on all occasions he was exhausted and coming down with a cold, falling asleep just after our friends left.
And what about sharing when we're out and about at playgroups etc? It can be so hard to stay relaxed when we're wanting to integrate with other mothers, wanting to be liked and like others, wanting our children to be sensitive to others and be liked as well.
I suspect the same trust or fear of our child's core nature applies. I personally don't ask him to give anything away if he's busy playing with it. And a few times he's surprised me by spontaneously bringing the toy to the child who wanted it when he's done with it. If he wants something another child is playing with I just say "That toy's busy, lets find something else" and he potters off quite happily.
To me the significance is this. As he grows up to become an older boy then a young teenager, I'm hoping he'll be very much at peace if he feels the desire to say 'no thank you' to someone who wants to come into his private sphere. I hope he expects to be heard if he says 'no thank you', and he knows to respect a 'no thank you' from someone else.
This seems like a vital inner compass to have when he starts exploring his sexuality, choosing his good friends, choosing how to invest his time in his studies and professional life. 'No' will be as easy to use as 'Yes'.
Do you know anyone who could benefit from being better at saying no? I thought so ;)
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