Hellobee Boards

@hilsy85: Agreed, it needs to be more concrete. For example, ours has things like using kind words, not using your hands as well as chores (maybe look at the Melissa and Doug one for some inspo?).

If I were creating one on my own, I'd try to tailor so she has at least one success and failure. There are learning points in both! I might also include one "teaching" item, like "teach sister how to put baby doll to bed" or something like that.

@Bao: I agree that "be nice" is too general. If it were me I would start with "using your words", "ask for help" and "sharing".

Instead of screaming at her baby sister, tell her what she needs. She doesn't understand screaming! take each situation and explain how she can use her words to get what she wants. ie Her sister takes a toy from her and she will immediately scream. Instead of screaming say "baby sister, can i have my toy back? You have to share."

If that doesn't work then "ask for help". Come ask mommy/daddy for help. We do this and are actively working on not always making DD1 give in to DD2 just because she's the older sibling. That' not fair. If DD2 takes something away from DD1 while she's actively playing with it we will ask DD2 to give it back. If she won't then we take it back and deal with the tantrum from DD2.

When DD1 or DD2 share of their own accord, we verbally encourage and give tons of praise.

@Bao: This sounds incredibly frustrating! I would potentially look at a family therapist...I would think they could do a consult and give you some tactics you can use. I wonder what's at the root of the issue, is it jealousy? Difficulty explaining emotions and feelings?

eta: I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way, but I truly believe that there are resources out there for a reason and I am not certain a behaviour chart is going to make a difference in this siutation, since you need a reward and punishments that are going to make a difference to your daughter.

I think "too nice" is too vague, and it's really hard to quantify. How about if instead of the whole day, you break up the day - so you can break it up as "No grabbing toys from your sister before lunch time" or "No screaming at your sister before dinner time". It's hard for kids that age to stick to a behaviour all day all of a sudden. I think if they see a few checkmarks/stickers on a chart, that will motivate them to continue with your desired behaviour.

Also, is her behaviour jealous related? I don't know what kind of rewards you had in mind, but i like to offer quality time with DD like baking muffins or taking her to the bookstore. I don't use reward charts, but i like to provide those activities as incentives for good behaviour.

@Freckles: @yellowbird: I really like your suggestions of breaking up the day. If a child is used to a certain behavior it can be hard to expect them to change suddenly!

@Bao: what motivates DD1? My DD1 is motivated by screen time and sweets. We reward "good" behavior with screen time at night before bed. If not that is usually the first thing to go if she has a bad report day at school or sent to time out 3x in a day.
What are the immediate consequences right now for screaming at her sister or not sharing etc? When you say scream, do you mean speaking Loudly/not using an indoor voice or speaking very loudly and angry at her sister?

Haven't read replies (answering quick because the little minion just got up) but make sure not to take away stickers. Once they earn them, they keep them - that behavior still happened, you know? We have a behavior chart and I found that she's way more responsive to random "You just shared that ball with your sister and that was such a nice thing to do. I'm proud of you!" And then she gets a sticker. I don't often say "if you do x, you'll get a sticker" but will bribe her to stay in bed at night sometimes with "remember, good listening gets you a sticker!" And it works!

Ugh my LO was screaming at his little sister. We tried a lot of positive modeling, etc, but it had become his knee jerk reaction to her. So for a few days every single time he screamed we would calmly pick him up and place him in time out saying, calmly, no screaming. We did this every. Single. Time. And we had to do it calmly, like a robot. This was always what happened when he screamed, it didn't matter what he was screaming about. Then after two minutes we would go get him and use one sentence to debrief, "No screaming, ask for a turn" or "no screaming, use kind words" etc... It worked.
So I would do that combined with with a positive reward sticker chart for things like "shared toy with sister" "said something kind to sister" "chose to use calm words"