Hellobee Boards

@sorrycharlie: Oye! I hear you on this one... I know my situation is a little different, but there are two things that we do to address it.
1. If W can't play nice, then we tell her she's out of control and she has to go to her room until she can get in control (teaching her to deal with her emotions). We have to be quick on this and act every time. It took about 2 weeks for her to really get it, and now, after 8ish months, we just tell her she's out of control, and she'll go to her room and calm down (only to appear a minute or so later saying "I'm in control now")
2. For the bossing around... I know it's more of an age/oldest child thing, but what we do is try to (calmly) make her understand how she would feel if her sister (or friend, etc) was doing it to her. Most of the time, when we turn it around, she gets it and can stop... if not, we revert to #1.
Good times!

What I find works with N is telling him what I expected him to do. Having expectations has helped him understand his boundaries. Since I have set expectations/ consequences for his behavior I get to tell him yes or great job so much more! Does it work perfectly? Nope but he loves hearing what a great job he is doing.
In terms of the bossy problem: we say "I am sorry N but we don't speak to (who ever) that way. When you can ask nicely or use a better tone, we will be ready to listen." We then just ignore the bossy voice until it changes.

For both of these it has taken a lot of patience and chocolate for momma but I am seeing the benefits. Good luck momma! Strong willed little ones will keep us on our toes.