Zero to Three offers Helping Young Children with Sharing. It’s a useful resource on a pretty challenging topic and should fit nicely into your day-to-day toolbox. The article describes why sharing is so difficult for toddlers (i.e., developmentally-appropriate expectations) and strategies to try (e.g., maintaining safety, calmly narrating, offering “long” turns, using a timer, reflecting feelings, coaching a child’s emotional reaction, supporting children to come up with a solution themselves, offering useful social information). “Learning to share with grace is a long process.” Rather than fearing the struggle, embrace it as the tremendous learning opportunity it is, one in which parents can promote and model self-regulation, empathy, and conflict resolution…all very important life-long skills. This resource is also available in Spanish: Cómo ayudar a los niños pequeños a compartir.
The ICC-Recommended Early Start Personnel Manual (ESPM) describes core knowledge and role-specific competencies needed for early intervention service provision, incorporating current research and evidence in the field of early intervention. Click here to access the ESPM. Scroll down to find the ESPM entry.
This resource is related to the following ESPM knowledge-level competencies:
- Core Knowledge (CK):
- CK2: The role of primary social and emotional relationships as the foundation for early learning.
- CK6: The sequences of development and the interrelationships among developmental areas/factors including social development and emotional development and resiliency, including the development of attachment, trust, and self-regulation.
- Individualized Family Service Plan Development and Review (IFSP-DR):
- IFSP-DR5 (EIS): Understands the rationale for the identification and selection of intervention strategies used in everyday routines, relationships, activities, places, and partnerships for early intervention activities (or justification of the extent to which some outcomes cannot be achieved in a natural environment).
- Individualized Family Service Plan Development and Review (IFSP-i):
- IFSP-i6 (EIS): Understands the need for developmentally appropriate strategies . . . , adaptations, assistive technologies, and other supports that maximize the child’s learning opportunities.
- IFSP-i11 (EIS): Knows strategies that support parents in adapting the natural environment to meet infant/toddler developmental needs.