Top Tip - Timed Sharing

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It’s good to have some tools in your back pocket when you’re a parent. I have a small collection, some rusty, some highly polished, varying from brilliant tips I've cherry picked from the best of the books, like Steve Biddulph's Raising Boys, to any old cobblers that I can think of on the spur of the moment.

There's one good trick I use to encourage sharing - the timed sharing technique.
Smudge had a his little friend Captain A over yesterday. Accompanying the Captain was what I took to be a helicopter minus rotor blades, but which I was informed was a ship.

Whatever it was there was trouble over it. Captain A kept it beside him at all times and guarded it jealously. Smudge appealed to his better nature but there was no sharing this baby. Finally Smudge went into a bit of a tear-stained funk and I had to step in.

Out of the back pocket came the sharing tool. All you need is an oven timer.

‘How about this, boys,’ I said in my most understanding, reasonable voice, which is a bit of a put-on really, but I do try. ‘I’m going to set the dinger for five minutes. So for five minutes it’s Captain A’s turn to play with the helicopter.’

‘It’s not a helicopter, it’s a ship!’

‘Okay. For five minutes, it’s Captain A’s turn to play with the ship. Then after five minutes the dinger will go, and then it’s Smudge’s turn to play with the ship! How’s that sound?’

There was a brief silence while they processed the idea. Then...

‘Okay! Pretend you’re a fire ranger and the pantry’s on fire and the ship’s coming to put it out!’

Suddenly Mr A’s enthusiasm for the helicopter was re-ignited, and instead of playing with one of Smudge’s toys and leaving the helicopter listing to one side on the floor next to him, he played with it, and with Smudge.

Five minutes on, the dinger went.

‘Okay! Well done Captain A, you’ve had a great time playing with the helicopter!’

‘It’s a ship!’

‘Okay! And now the dinger’s gone and it’s Smudge’s turn to play with it for five minutes. I’ll set the dinger again, okay?’

A brief pause.

‘Okay!’ Captain A handed the ship over willingly to Smudge.

‘Pretend you’re a rocket! And the ship will chase you! In space!’

And so on.

Tips for using the timed sharing tool: they soon catch on. When the dinger went to signal the end of Smudge’s turn, he wanted to play with the ship for ‘a much long long long time!’ However, longer than five minutes is too long. The child playing with the toy gets listless and runs out of puff with it, and the child waiting is in an agony of anticipation. The answer is to lie. Tell them you're putting the dinger on for longer, but keep it at five. Easy!

Second tip: timed sharing works brilliantly at parties where there are lots of children who don't know you and are therefore less likely to question your authority. Impresses the adults present too.

There is a drawback to this game. At the end of the day there was no finding the dinger amongst the debris that is my living room. I knew my Other Half would take a dim view of this, so I scouted round for it while he was upstairs bathing Curly. While I scouted, I pictured the dinger being secreted into the snotty-tissue-ridden depths of Captain A’s jeans, or the land-that-time-forgot underneath Smudge’s bed.

Then Smudge came downstairs in his dressing gown.

‘Do you know where the dinger is, Smudge?’

‘No. Hab you lost it?’

‘Well, we have lost it. Have you got it?’

‘No?’

‘You haven’t taken it away and hidden it somewhere?’

‘No,’ he said, obviously insulted.

‘Hmm. You don’t think Captain A has taken it home with him, do you?’

‘No, he didn’t!’

I continued looking fitfully round the living room.

‘If we have lost it, it has gone forever!’ observed Smudge, helpfully.

‘Well I hope not.’

‘I will tell Daddy.’

‘No, don’t do that!’

‘I will just tell him.’ He took off across the carpet towards the stairs.

‘No, Smudge, don’t tell Daddy!’

But he’d already sprinted up the hallway in a flurry of blue and green striped towelling. I heard his voice in the bathroom.

‘Daddy, if we have lost the dinger, it is just gone forever.’

‘Oh, no.’ Daddy’s voice gave a strong sense of that sinking feeling that he’s had so many times before as a result of being trapped in a house with the rest of us.

After skulking for a while, I went to the kitchen to get Smudge his bedtime milk and came across my Other Half filling up the dishwasher in a desultory fashion.

‘I hear we’ve lost the dinger.’

‘I knew you’d say that!’

‘It is just gone forever!’ Smudge was still keen to throw in his ha’penny worth.

‘Where was it?’

‘It was on the blackboard, I was timing them for turns with the helicopter.’

‘It is a ship!’

My Other Half prowled around the living room while I filled up Smudge’s drink cup in the kitchen.

‘Here it is!’

‘Here ‘tis Mummy!’

‘Where was it?’

‘It was on the bookshelf.’

It was on the bookshelf. Where I left it.

‘Oh yes. I put it there.’

‘You weren’t going to tell me you’d lost it, were you?’ My Other Half looked up from swiping at the kitchen surfaces with a sponge.

‘Of course I wasn’t! What do you take me for?’

‘You were just going to keep quiet and hope it turned up!’

‘Of course I was!’

‘God, plllffff….’ He was incredulous. I don’t know why, because we’ve been here many times before.

I scurried round the corner and headed for the stairs, chasing Smudge along in front of me. My Other Half followed us, waving his sponge.

‘So, why….?’

‘Because I knew I’d have to listen to you going on about it if I said anything!’

‘Huh! Ohrrr, ahgg!’

We got the dinger back so all was well at the end of the day. And I got to reduce my Other Half to a jibbering wreck. That’s as good as it gets in Apple Island Lodge.

Before I get any more messages from any more 'marginalised' men (see previous post on Kate Holden), take it from me: my Other Half can give as good as he gets.