Sharing Spaces

As an only child, Noey, as you can imagine, is not used to sharing. I try my best, occasionally taking over his toys but hey, sharing with Mummy who would give in to you if you asked and say please isn’t really the same! It was therefore interesting (to me) to watch his interactions with other children during our recent church conference.

Now, our church has LOTS of kids. We are a small congregation of about 200 souls, and easily a third of that number are kids. Most families have 2 or 3 kids, with a handful with 4. It was with one of these families of 4 that Noey found himself when he escaped from the evening message on Friday to play outside the ballroom.

As I previously mentioned, we had brought along plenty of Noey’s toys to keep him entertained. On this evening, he had in his hand his favourite car, something which the other 2 little children, 3 year old Josiah and 1 year old Jennabeth immediately zeroed in on. Since he had a few extra cars in his bag, I pulled them out and handed one each to the other two children to play with.

Noey protested and started whining for “red car!” even as I firmly pointed out that he already had a car to play with — his favourite blue car at that — and had to share his cars with the rest. He wasn’t too happy about this, but he accepted it. While he occasionally still voiced his protest, he didn’t kick up a fuss.

What he couldn’t deal with was sharing his space.

Noey, used to having his pick of the surfaces on which to roll his cars, didn’t know how to handle it when Josiah not only tried to push his car on the same table, but also kept cheekily using his car to block Noey’s as Noey tried to push his car along the edge of the coffee table. He also stood in Noey’s way, though not deliberately, as Noey tried to walk around the table.

Noey, confused and distressed, kept looking at me and protesting with little cries. He tried to push his way through, then looked up at me and said “push!” as if he already anticipated the reprimand that would be coming his way. In the end, in a fit of anger, he chucked his car on the ground. I had to take him away to lecture him about his behaviour, and also instruct him on how to share his space, not be bothered, and really just move away if others blocked him.

To my surprise, he seemed to take my advice to heart. When he went back to the table, he managed to play peacefully with the other 2, turning around and going the opposite direction when blocked. Mummy here was quietly pleased.

I’m now thinking of how I can engineer more such encounters with other children for him.

Noey on his part is clearly glad to be home and on his own. He happily ransacked his toy box and entertained himself quietly for a long while. I probably shouldn’t have been surprised when last night just before going to sleep, he rolled around and said:

Other children go away
Come again another day
Little Noey wants to play!