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Thursday Thinkers: Too Young to Share

Don’t get me wrong. Teaching kids to share is important.

Thursday? Tinkering Thoughts on Thinking Tots.

Really, you know, the last thing I want for this blog is for a notion towards promoting personal integrity in children as a path to critical thought (see my explanation in “The Three Eyes“) to turn into a rant on teaching kids to share. For one thing, I don’t consider myself to be a particular good “sharer.” For another, I think this whole question of moral integrity might be wrapped a little deeper than some vague small-L liberal idealism of “why can’t we all just get along?” My disclosure is that I consider myself that small-L liberal. But I’m also a bit of a realist and sit squarely on the fence of debate on the benefits of passive versus assertive (and vice versa) involvement in society.

Eight months ago (and not much since) my words and thoughts on the topic of moral integrity in relation to this question were such:

Willful integrity is a moral determination bound up within the whole character of an individual. It is not the opposite of independence, but rather the foil for that particular player. Where independence is about personal accountability, integrity is about recognition to a higher state; For example, recognition that we are but participants in a larger society, culture, environment, and truth. Integrity is achieved by understanding our universe to the fullest potential and balancing the forces that shape it to the best of our abilities.

Even then as I was just starting this whole skepdad-adventure, my notion of integrity as something of a road-map to critical thinking skills was something more than the passive notion of learning to share. Don’t get me wrong. Teaching kids to share is important. But as I look at the young girl sitting on the living room floor playing with her toys, still to young to even have a sense of the idea of ownership, I wonder if “sharing” is nothing more than a developmental milestone, and even less, a child-rearing “end-point.” In fact, as I allude to in my choice of words, the idea of sharing seem to me to be but one side of a balanced equation: passive versus aggressive. Passive, in that one allows the sense of something larger than oneself (particularly society, culture, environment, and truth) to guide one’s actions — to share for the mutual benefit of all. But aggressive, in that one does not submit one’s will fully to another and in turn allow the “sharing” to lead to the downfall of one’s own ideals and well-being.

Integrity, then, is a difficult thing to reach: it is an equilibrium with society and self. And as we raise our kids, teaching them to share with others, that it is good to give, that we can contribute to make society better for all, there also needs to be the lesson of selfishness, not as an end to itself, but as a counterweight to the other. Or maybe I’m just getting too old to share.

The skep/dad blog is meant to casually reflect on questions surrounding parenting and raising kids to become critical thinkers by asking questions and examining parenting ideas with a skeptical eye for facts and science. Each article is one dad's personal opinion, backed where relevant by literature and published research. skep/dad welcomes balanced discussion, comments, and ideas.

May 1, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: The Three Eyes

Popularity: 19%

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