Assistant Professor of Psychology Julie Dunsmore was consulted for an article in the Boston Globe which explores the difficulties involved in teaching children to share. Dunsmore suggests parents might be overly optimistic when a small child exibits signs of sharing, "It sure looks like sharing," she admits, "But it's a sharing of attention- 'Look what I've got, isn't it neat?'- not a sharing of the object."
The article goes on to suggest that sharing, while most obvious during interactions with other children, is taught at home. Dunsmore suggests parents focus on teaching their children the skill of turn-taking, while it may seem easier to pacify young, screaming toddlers by giving them what they desire, in the long run parents are really instilling bad habits which discourage sharing with other children.
