Bossy 4 Year Old

[littlemommy]

DCG is a few months shy of being 4, and AHHH! She has only been here an hour and is already on my last nerve. All morning she's been bossing her sister, the other kids, and ME around.

Do I ignore it or do I correct her every time? Correcting has done no good in the past 4 months that she has been here.

[Mrs. CC]

I have a new homecare, and one of my 2.5 year old DCGs does this. It drives me NUTS and my 3.5 year old son has picked up on it. The two of them drive me crazy!!!

I will be watching this thread for some advice! Thank you for posting!

[2ndFamilyDC]

Doesn't it seem like there is always one kid that has to be the boss?

I sometimes say to the one kid I currently have that is the "boss".

Well guess I don't need to change diapers, or make lunch or whatever because

you can do it. He looks at me funny and says "I can't do that" I say but

your the boss so you need to do that. That usually stops the behavior for

about an hour and then he is back to his old ways.

Seriously, hope someone on here has a way of breaking this behavior

permanently.

[MsMe]

I don't know how to put the link in....but the thread from last week about a child staying in a childs place....had great advice!!!

[littlemommy]

She is the oldest in the group that is all 2 year olds. I feel like I'm correcting her every 5 minutes for bossing someone around. When she tells ME what to do....that makes me want to scream!

[Ariana]

Unfortunately this is very normal behavior!! However that doesn't mean you can't do something about it. I had a 4 year old in my daycare with her younger sister and it was crazy!! I reeeeeally felt bad for the younger sister because at least I was there to intervene but at home they get very little supervision.

I took out some books on being bossy from the library and read them during circle time and we talked about how people like to make their own choices etc. Then whenever I'd intervene on the bossy kid I'd remind her that people sometimes don't want to do what you want them to do and you have to ask nicely. Unfortunately if the parents aren't doing it at home it's going to be an ongoing battle for you...at least it was for me. I talked to the parents constantly about it because this 4 year old was also having problems at school which I felt came from this bossiness....anyway her parents were just too "tired" to care and it never improved

I feel your pain but don't give up