Share With Your Sisters

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Photo:  Nonqaba waka Msimang
Family values.
They mean different things to different people.  
They are nothing but, how things are done to bring up kids to prepare them to live in harmony with a harsh world, with people who share the same outlook on life, or not.

Sharing for example.  It makes school easier if kids are used to sharing and helps them with their subjects.  Jack is more likely to understand what the teacher is saying about quarters, if it reminds him of home.
I’ll cut this orange into four quarters so that you can share with your three sisters.

This muffin is too big for you.  Let’s cut it in half.
From time immemorial, immigrants in Canada and the U.S. had a history of sharing. They settled well and adopted ways to show their affluence: over spending and overlooking the mine, mine, mine song kids sing in a new country.  Sharing is often shunned as old country values.

Besides inculcating rudimentary math, sharing is good for the environment because it is not littered with soda cans three-year old kids could not finish.
The mother and father can make sharing a game between them, share a banana, a glass of juice, piece of toast etc.  Kids pick up these things and it is a pleasant surprise when they unveil them before the family.  Parents can come up with various ideas for sharing food. 

·         Cut toast in half and arrange it in on one plate to prevent waste, biting a slice and throwing it away.

·         Slice fruit.  Apples and oranges can be cut into halves or quarters.

·         Peel tangerines.  Ask kids to count the pieces.  If there are 12 pieces, how many will four kids get each?  This is more fruitful than one child eating half a tangerine and throwing it away.

·         Sugar cane has natural divisions for sharing.

·         Buy 2-litre soda and serve it in glasses.  This ensures that you’ll give the last born a little bit.

·         Pizza.  It is not cheap for big families. Cut the slices to manageable sizes for the little one or say: “Who will like to share a slice with daddy?”
Make sharing the normal word at home.  Some kids use ‘sh’ and ‘f’ words early in life because they live in their homes.

By:  Nonqaba waka Msimang.

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