MATERIAL OBJECTS- CAN THEY REALLY EVER BE "MINE" ??

When my children were little, we decided to use personal pronouns only to describe very personal items like "my toothbrush, or hairbrush etc.), and the rest of the material things around them were addressed as "the toy", " the game", " the book" etc.

If we brought something home for them to look at or play with, we would never say it was for them, and they would never think of it as "mine". We would refer to the article as "the doll ", not "their doll", and so we hoped our children would learn not to cling to objects, identify too strongly with them, or be too possessive of them. We never rewarded behavior with material things, they were not a sign of their "goodness or rightness", or a job well done.

If there was an item that was age appropriate, and a younger sibling might destroy it, then it was designated "not appropriate for that age group", but not restricted because it was the older childs possession, or because it was "mine".

They learned sharing not by sacrifice of something that was "theirs", but by knowing that letting everyone have a turn, was a major skill necessary to maintain harmonious social interactions, and they felt best when the family was at peace and their life was serene.

There was minimal possessiveness, very little sibling rivalry, and we think this method worked well for our family unit, and what we were trying to achieve, as far as important life lessons we wanted to share with our children, when they were young, open, and extremely impressionable.

 

With our children, everything is everyone's, if that makes sense. None of the kids have a "that's mine" type mentality. Sure, at times, they do squabble over a toy, but for the most part, they are very good at sharing and realizing that, they'll have a lot more fun by sharing everything than harboring it all for themselves.

 

While most things in our home are everyone's. We all do have our own things. Some special things that are one child's to chose to share or not. I have things that are mine and that I choose to not share with anyone else. I think it's important to have our own things as much as it's important to have equal ownership of other things.

A bit OT: when I was growing up, my mom called everything "her's". Don't ruin "my floor". Don't hang things on "my walls" etc... I'm trying my best to never say that.

 

I agree. If kids have nothing of their own they don't learn to care for their own things. Most items are shared by the family but everyone has their own off limits stuff as well.

 

Colorfulhippie, my bio parents did that to me when I lived with them and I HATED it! My step-dad (who is my bio father but didn't raise me, I'll tell THAT story another time)even went so far as to say that we children were their "posessions" and they "owned" us until we were 18! Blech! It just felt majorly disrespectful and dehumanizing. Like we weren't a valuable part of the family unit and our opinions and expressions didn't matter. But, they are Apostolic Pentecostal, extreme evangelical nut-jobs so, whatever.