Sibling giving

...
Our kids have no concept of money and quite honestly, I sort of love this... for now. So far we haven't had to introduce allowances or anything as some sort of incentive to help around the house. Hand them a broom or deem one of them tablewasher and good luck trying to get them to stop. If only I could hone it to a more functional clean. Oh, the possibilities.

Now, sharing and giving? Yes, this is something that they can wrap their brains around. I would love to sit here and let you believe that my children are the best at sharing and giving in the world but then that really wouldn't do much to explain why our Elf on the Shelf refused to return back to Casi di Maggio one night this week. It was THAT bad. Sharing is a consistent work in progress.

As a parent, this has become one of my favorite challenges. Taking a small dose of autonomy, their giant imaginations and mixing it up in a moment of premeditated kindness and voila. I mean really, how can the end result not be straight out of a hallmark card?

Now that our children are getting older, we have started a tradition where every Christmas each one of them takes their own piggy bank to the store to buy something for the other. This definitely could be tweaked to just creating something too. While our kids have no concept of money they do like to collect it to feed their piggies. Diminishing their piggie food supply for the sake of their brother/sister is a great opportunity to practice the art of giving.

Who knew that one little shopping trip would open the door on such great ideas about giving?

And of course, we had no fun at all.

 The key is that everything is child directed and EVERYTHING is fair game.

The sneaking off to wrap-it extravaganza was a blast. We had one minor SNAFU when Lucy ate Molly's decor. Made way for a nice little added discussion on patience. They are both so excited for the other to open their gift. Gabe so much that he keeps trying to whisper to Molly what it is.

Sibling giving. Best $2.17 life lesson, yet.