My little guy turned 3 last month and for his birthday and Christmas he received a couple of board games. During the winter holiday, I used these new games as an opportunity to give him his own little game shelf. At first this was a simple bit of organizing and trying to keep him from my games. However, now that I’ve come had time to see his shelf in action and reflect, there is a much deeper lesson to be learned. He is beginning to understand the concept of ownership and I want him to be proactive in taking care of his things.
Children as young as 2 and 3 understand ownership. In order to promote this sense of ownership, I need to remember that I should ask him if I can play “5 game” or “piggy sticks.” I actually enjoy Digit and play it for fun; it is a challenging solo puzzle with simple rules and near-zero set up time. If he says no, I don’t play. If he says yes, I thank him and invite him to join. I want him to learn that he has some control over his environment and that his feelings are important. Also, he needs to learn to emulate this behavior and ask permission to play with toys while visiting friends. A three-year-old grabbing toys from the shelf without asking still is a cute. A six-year-old is simply rude.
A second benefit to a feeling of ownership is the endowment effect. The endowment effect is why people find it so hard to drop underperforming players drafted in fantasy football leagues. In general, we value something we own more than the same thing if we didn’t own it. When we used to play with my games, my son would help clean up, but I would do the majority of the work. Now the roles are reversed. He does almost all the cleaning of his games while I sit and point to bits he misses. This might be a result of him being older now and my games having more components and complex storage solutions. But it might also be a result of him valuing his games more than my games.
He still likes to climb up on our table and reach for one of my games. Fortunately this is happening less often now that he has his own shelf he can reach. Now, when he does try to get at my games, I can easily redirect him to his games. I have no evidence, but it seems like it would be easier to redirect a child to a similar activity instead of something different. If he wants to play board games, he should by directed to another board game, not his coloring book.
The Keasy Depot 