Need to curb bossiness

Bea's got a bossy streak, but I think part of this is her OCD about place and position of objects. Some examples with Ainsley are like she will tell her to play with this toy, or tell Ainsley to get her something from across the room. With adults, she will tell me to sit in a certain spot if I am not in the "right" spot, to zip my coat all the way up (I usually have it 3/4 zipped), put my shoes on, stuff like that. She also tells me to go get her things. She also does this with DH and my mother. When she tells me to get something, I remind her to ask nicely. With the other stuff, I tell her I am a grown-up and I can sit wherever I want, I don't want my coat zipped all the way up, etc. DH does the same thing. My mother tends to play along with her demands, I would rather she not. Sometimes Bea's reaction to my refusal is she just moves on, sometimes she will get upset.

Anyone else have something like this going on? How do you handle it? I hate feeling like I'm being bossed around by a two year old.

 

CUTE! Well, not so cute, but you sure make it sound cute.

Hannah can get on a bossy streak. When she demands things (i.e., "Get me some milk") our response is ALWAYS, "Try that again." And usually she will say please and use a more pleasant tone. Sometimes I think that she just has a one-track mind and forgets to ask for things nicely. Because when I remind her to try again, she does.

As for the general bossiness of telling you or her sister what to do, that one has me a little more stumped. I know when Hannah bosses Ben around I either say, "Let me be the mommy," or "You are not the mommy." That embarrasses her enough that she stops.

Just sharing what we do. But I just wanted to say I feel your pain to some degree. I feel like I say a million times a day, "Try that again."

 

All of mine boss each other to some extent. More so with the big girls, but they will switch around on who is being bossy.

I think you are handling it well. Have you tried asking your mother not to play along-or at least to get her (Bea) to phrase it as a request not an order?

In terms of the bossing her sister what I do is; for orders of "go get that" I remind them that they need to ask nicely. If her sister does fetch the item then I make sure they say thank you and I also praise the one who did the fetching for being helpful. If her sister doesn't fetch it then I say something like "Alyssa is busy doing xyz at the moment. Why don't you get it yourself."
For orders of "play with that" or "sit there" I will just say "Bryony can choose for herself what she wants to play with/where she wants to sit." or "She can make up her own mind what she wants. You don't need to tell her." Even if the one being bossed is not bothered and it doesn't seem to make a difference I figure that they are still both getting the message that they have the right to choose things like that for themselves. It seems to get through because all of mine are now comfortable telling each other "I don't want to!"

 

do you live in my house?!?!?!?

alisha is very bossy too and dh and i don't like it at all. she doesn't boss cameron around so much, but does tell dh and i to do things in a tone i don't like. i always tell her to ask nicely (and she'll then say please) but i like kate's approach (try that again) better.

let me know if you find anything that works!

 

I am going to try "You're not the Mommy". I think maybe she doesn't get why it's not correct to tell Mommy and Daddy what to do.