kay alina

I am wondering how you all explain sharing to your children

I started pretty early on sharing prosperity principles with him. I come
from the perspective that the universe is abundant. I have shared my belief
with Alex that we will always have more than enough and will always have
plenty to share. I also discouraged grabbing and taught him to ask politely
if he wanted to play with someone's toy. They have the right to say no as
he does. Sharing is a joyful experience and there is no reason a child
should feel it is about lack or a negative. I have never been fond of
greedy adults and I think it starts early from a false belief system that
there is not enough. Anyway, that is how I deal with it.
Kay

pam sorooshian

On Jun 15, 2004, at 7:06 PM, kay alina wrote:

> Sharing is a joyful experience and there is no reason a child
> should feel it is about lack or a negative.

"Be generous in prosperity" is a little snippet from a longer Baha'i
writing...it has come up in our house many times in the context of
"sharing" - I also like to try to be focusing more on the good feeling
of being able to share than the deprived feeling of having to share.
Making kids share when they don't want to defeats the purpose, for me,
of them developing a generous spirit.


This is the whole thing (because I know somebody will ask):

Be generous in prosperity,
and thankful in adversity.
Be fair in judgement,
and guarded in thy speech,
Be a lamp unto those who walk
in darkness, and a home
to the stranger.
Be eyes to the blind, and a guiding light
unto the feet of the erring
Be a breath of life to the body of
humankind, a dew to the soil of
the human heart,
and a fruit upon the tree of humility.