I think my crowing about the Monster’s being willing and able to share at times has bitten me in the backside.

When the Monster got home from school today, we had about a half hour before he had to dash off to his therapy session.  Because he hadn’t finished the snacks in his lunch, the wife gave him the bag of pretzels.

Now, R likes pretzels too.  So when he saw that the Monster had some, he meandered over and asked.  “Petzles!”

“[Monster],” said my wife, “can you share your pretzels with [R]?”

“Share with [Monster],” he insisted.

I thought maybe the issue was that it was his little brother.  So, in turn, we each asked if we could share with him, and got the same answer.  No matter what, he really was not interested in sharing his pretzels with anyone besides himself.

I don’t think that the issue is, so much, that he doesn’t get what sharing is as much as he’s not interested in doing so in most cases.  (Well, at least with food.)  It seems to be more that he tolerates other children playing along with him as opposed to their getting sole access to what it is that he currently has… but I’d have to test that one out.

I think that we’re going to have to work on that social skill before he’s really out with other children, since as you all saw from yesterday, not playing nicely is one of my pet peeves.  It’s an important skill for one’s adult life.  Even if he doesn’t learn a lot of the other pleasantries that are part of childhood life and having friends, he’s got to learn that one…