I have kids and what I’ve learned and noticed is that kids are, unsurprisingly, just like people, and there are selfish ones, and not so selfish ones. Generalizations don’t really work with people, or kids, because kids are people.

Kids demand a lot of time but can be remarkably unselfish. My 3 y.o. daughter made my bed this morning and tries to help me if I seem tired. We help each other out, and parenthood opened me up to a way of living that was less self-interested.

And the 50 lines of code you hurriedly typed in a flash of inspiration is also likely to not compile. Because it's a project that starts off very rough and requires work to shape it into what it needs to be.

All kids are different, but FWIW, my daughter used to take our her pacifier and stick it in her twin brother's mouth when he was crying. When she was a bit older (maybe three?) she'd often give him the last strawberry or whatever from her plate if he finished first. She's five now, and she's an extremely generous and high empathy kid.

Maybe that's unusual, and on average kids can be selfish (or maybe self-centered), but it's not as black and white as you're describing.

And you're playing a game of teaching them about what it means - more general what everything in the world means, how to read the world. You will find it frustraiting and interesting, arguably your task is to shift the balance so it's not frustrating for you and your kid, you'll learn a lot about humans, yourself and kids along the way (or not).

> from what I know about small children they're likely to be a thousand times more selfish than you

Wait until they are 12.