(This is written by Footywife)

“I am a selfish boy” - my little son told me that the other day.

It pains my heart to hear that.  It is one thing to tell a child that his action is selfish and quite another to hear the child regurgitating the same sentiment about himself.  When my little son said that, a sense of guilt just swept over me for making him feel this way about himself.

And this is not the only thing he makes me feel guilty about.  The other day he told me “only you smack me!”.  That’s of course not true.  I just smack him more often than his papa given that I spend 24/7 with him.  But the accusation makes me feel guilty and left me wondering if I am smacking him too often?

And whenever he makes me so angry that I lost it and started roaring at him, I will no doubt be plagued by a guilty conscience after that.  “Mama, you scream at me two times already” was what he told me few days ago.

Parenting, they say, gets tougher as the child gets older.  I am beginning to experience the truth behind the statement.

It is so common for children in the 2-3yrs old age band to be selfish, territorial and uncooperative.

Asking them to share their toys will usually draw "undesirable" reactions ranging from sulking faces to absolute defiance.

But parents can take comfort in that only about half of 3 year olds CAN share, and even so, they tend to do it only briefly. You see, learning to share is a totally new concept to a growing toddler.

Maureen Hickey in her article "How To Encourage Children To Become Sharing People " suggested that children need to learn the concept of ownership before they could understand the concept of sharing. And pre-schoolers are not mentally developed yet to fully grasp the idea of sharing.

So don’t feel compelled to push your child to share if you next see him hoarding his toys. He or she may not be ready yet, and it is something beyond his control.

In the meantime, you may want to begin introducing them to this Veggie Tales story that centres on Sharing.