It’s Okay Not to Share: A Q&A With Author Heather Shumaker

I have to say, when I read the title of Heather Shumaker’s new (and terrific!) book It’s Okay Not to Share…and Other Renegade Rules for Raising Competent and Compassionate Kids (Jeremy Tarcher/Penguin), I breathed a sigh of relief. Because to be honest, when my kids were very little, I couldn’t bear the sharing emphasis. Good heavens, two-year-olds are just not able to share! And then when they get older, they may know sharing is right, but still, they have to negotiate and figure out their own needs before they just hand over a toy because some adult told them to. Think about it: do you always share? (Be honest).

Shumaker’s book has, including the sharing-isn’t-necessary-all-the-time one, 29 “renegade rules” (though I wouldn’t call the rules so much as thought-provoking ideas) for raising kids with less preciousness, and more stick-to-it-iveness. I had to talk to her about the book, so here’s our conversation.

Oh, and after you read, please comment! In two weeks or so, I’ll pick one commenter at random and you’ll win a copy of the book. And if you don’t win, here’s where you go to buy it.

Heather, tell me a little bit about It’s OK Not to Share. Where did the idea come from? And why are your rules so “renegade”?

I actually started it when my 8-year-old was born. The idea of the book was begging to be written, so even though I didn’t have much time, I started doing basic research back then. The book’s ideas kept becoming more and more relevant to families today. Schools forgot about the importance of free play for young kids.  Parents forgot what to limit and what to allow. People were getting stressed. So I knew the time was right.

This book is a product of my family. My mother’s been a preschool teacher for 40 years at an unorthodox preschool in Columbus, Ohio. They encourage kids to box and wrestle as part of the curriculum, and don’t insist that kids immediately ‘share’ their toys. You can see it’s pretty different from the typical classroom. I attended this school, the School for Young Children, and was hoping to find a truly play-based school like it when I became a mother. That’s when I realized how different their philosophy was. How renegade.

It’s renegade because for some reason parents today are scared of a lot of kid energy, high emotions, active physical energy, normal preschool aggression. There’s a lot of pressure and worry in the air about letting kids be kids.

Like I do, you have two boys. Do you think it’s more of an issue — this lack of permission for kids to be kids and to be rough and tumble — for boys?

I do, but the fact that I have 5- and 8-year-old boys is not the reason I wrote the book. Some readers tell me it’s more of a “boy” book because I have sons, but I started the book and outlined all its chapters really before they were born. Still  It’s OK NOT to Share purposefully has a whole section on boys (or any high energy kid) because these kids are most at risk in our current schools, preschools and daycare classrooms.  Their healthy, typical behavior is un-welcomed in our culture right now.  The book gives tips to change that.

As I said in the introduction, you’ve got 29  “renegade rules,”and yet your title calls out “it’s okay not to share.” Now, obviously titles are meant to draw in readers, so it makes sense to choose something that’ll catch a buyer’s attention. Do you think that the “okay not to share” rule is the most controversial or gasp-inducing choice for a title, considering that parents today say “please share!” practically as a reflex, from the time their kids are babies?

Some people like the title, some people hate it, but everyone reacts. Usually I hear, “Ah, finally, someone who gets it!”  Sharing is huge hot button topic. It’s universal. You’re right — parents insist a child shares as soon as she can walk, or even before. Once people realize how child-directed turn-taking works, they love it. It simplifies family life. The ideas in It’s OK Not to Share take parents out of the role of referee and helps kids learn to be truly generous.

Sharing is certainly one of the most controversial topics – along with hitting and kicking, toy weapons, rough play, social rejection, “no girls” signs, boys in dresses, etc.

I’m thinking that one problem that’s led to the “you must share!” and “no rough play!” rules is that parents are so much more involved in their children’s lives than, say, my parents were in mine. My parents were just happy I was outside playing with my friends; they had no idea what I was doing. Which makes me realize my friends and I were not always sharing, and working out conflicts, and all those other things you talk about in your book. Yet now, parents are intimately involved in their children’s relationships with other kids, they watch over them as they play… What’s the downside?

Being involved is one thing, interrupting and over-directing is another. As adults we tend to worry if a child plays “bomb the bad guys” or says “I don’t want to play with you.” We worry when our 5-year-old can’t read, doesn’t know the number 8 or doesn’t glue the clown’s hat on right. I’m not sure why, but our nation is on a worry path right now about typical, natural kid development.

Young kids learn best through unstructured play and discovery. They need plenty of time to explore their own ideas, try out first friendships and have imaginary adventures. Kids need to practice having problems and mastering their emotions. Those are really the most important learning experiences of early childhood.  Good learning can’t happen when we over-structure kids’ days and direct how they play. Over-structuring comes from the family (think soccer, dance class, karate, etc.) and from schools (structured activities, short blocks of playtime). Directing play can mean choosing playmates (“Be nice and let Sarah play with you,”) choosing play topics (“That’s not a gun, that’s a magic wand,”) or quizzing kids in educational games (“How many blue ponies are there?  One, two…”).

When we do that we steal their time. Precious time. Time they desperately need to be learning other things, life skills that give them a foundation for emotional competence, problem-solving, risk-taking, kindness and creativity throughout life.  (See my blog post, Keep the PRE in Preschool).

You talk about how conflict between kids is one major way they learn. But conflict is one of those things that parents, and other adults who care for kids, seem to automatically want to smooth over, intervene in, or manage. I believe, and I’m sure you agree, that this is a well-meaning impulse, but is it too much? Explain briefly what you mean by the value of conflict between kids, too.

Kids don’t learn about peace by singing about it. Or by having others step in and solve their problems (or step in and prevent problems from happening). Kids learn about peace by having problems. By encountering conflict and learning what to do about it. This is a fundamental life skill. Learning how to be assertive, to state what you don’t like, to set limits on peers, to listen to peers, to solve problems respectfully.  One of the best things we can do as parents is teaching our kids conflict-mediation skills.  My book outlines 10 steps for conflict mediation.

You have chapter about kids and guns and the kind of imaginative play that, I think, children have done since the beginning of time (my dad speaks fondly of playing Cowboys and Indians as a kid in Brooklyn, and the kids I knew in my neighborhood all played games that involved shooting and pretend-killing). My kids have and love Nerf guns. I don’t have a problem with it, and yet I wonder sometimes if I should. The sensible part of my head knows that my children aren’t violent, knows that shooting suction-cup Nerf bullets so that they stick to the living room windows will not turn them into killers. Neither do I logically believe the fact that my older son sometimes uses his arm as a shotgun means he’s in danger of becoming a mass shooter or a gang banger. What do you see as the value of imaginary gun play?

This is hard-hitting right now. Our heads and hearts are understandably affected by stores of gun violence in the news. But children’s play is not creating violence. It’s doing the opposite. Weapon play games are one path towards moral development. Games deal with good guys and bad guys, good and evil, power and being a hero. Weapon play games are nearly always cooperative and imaginative. They’re social games involving other playmates, and it’s more important how kids treat each other in real life (are they laughing? Do they show concern if someone gets hurt?) than what the play theme is. I’ve written extensively on this topic – see these stories in the Huffington Post and New York Post.  My book offers a list of graduated steps families can take to comfortably allow this kind of imaginative play.

Bullying is a pervasive problem in our culture, and the focus on trying to mitigate the problem is, to me, admirable. I think back to the bullies of my childhood, and how many bullied kids were hurt with no help, and I shudder. But I sometimes wonder if it’s going too far in the wrong direction. Calling someone a derogatory name or pushing them around in the hallways of school every day, targeting a child for a difference, real or perceived: that feels like bullying to me, and I think it’s smart to teach our kids to be sensitive and alert to it and learn ways to deal with it. But I’ve heard parents saying that a child who doesn’t invite another child to a party is a “bully.” To me, that’s just mean and poor manners, which is different. Is the word bully overused – almost as shorthand for saying “everyone has to be nice all the time”?

“Bully” is overused, which takes away from the serious issue of true bullying.  What’s most important is to teach kids – including the bully, the victim and onlookers — is to stand up and stop behavior they don’t like.  That is the basics of conflict mediation. Giving kids the chance to encounter each other, have problems, and learn to speak up and put a stop to what they don’t like. Assertiveness training begins as early as two. Kids aren’t automatically bullies if they do something wrong or even something mean. Childhood is about making lots of mistakes and learning social boundaries. It’s about learning to deal with negative emotions appropriately. Also, as adults, we often pounce on the child who seems to be the aggressive one, but often that kid is scared or worried about something, too.

Thanks, Heather! And readers, remember, leave a comment, share the post, get the conversation going — and you’ll be entered to win a copy of Heather’s book!

Heather Shumaker, mom of two and author of “It’s Okay Not to Share…”