Managing a 3 year olds behaviour

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Any advice welcome, I'm at the end of my tether.

3yo dd refuses to share and it's become a nightmare. We regularly meet up with friends and she will take the ball or whatever and refuse to share, she's a bright little thing so she knows what she's doing is not kind.

I've just lost my rag and left a picnic as she was refusing to share / play nicely and it's just not fare on the other children there.

We've a 9 month old as well, so leaving anywhere is a real faff and a punishment for the baby as well as he loves being out and about.

How do you manage bad behaviour when out without resorting to leaving. Delayed gratification tactics don't work with her e.g no cartoons later, as she lives in the moment.

Thanks in advance

Do you play sharing games at home with her or games that take turns?
I’d praise her whenever there was a hint of sharing and comment positively when others are sharing.

We play board games etc and she knows she must take turns there, she's very good at taking turns with adults but not other dc.

I'm not excusing her behaviour at all, but since her baby brother has started crawling she's finding it really stressful that he's touching her things, having had the run of the place for nearly 3 years. She's become very possessive of everything, it's spiraling out of control.

Could she a special toy that is strictly off limits to her brother? With toddlers it’s all about control.

Does she have somewhere where she can keep things she doesn't want him to touch, or is she allowed to sometimes say she doesn't want him touching her things or coming in her room?

I had a similar age gap it sounds like, and I had delusions of them playing happily together but I don't think it's fair to expect her to share all the time. Mine got very frustrated and just wanted everything to herself all the time but once she knew she could keep some things for herself she calmed down a bit!

At home out need to find a space for her to play with her own things without her brother getting into them. Imagine setting out something precious to you and someone else coming along and messing around with it and not using it in the way it should be used and ruining your enjoyment.

You will find she will get better at sharing with age, don’t expect too much, she is very little still and it is normal for a 3 year old to still not be great at sharing,

Thank you both very much for the replies.

The baby isn't allowed in her bedroom, so she can keep all her precious things in there and has free access to go and play in there.

I'm not really worried about her not sharing with her brother, that's just siblings I guess.

It's more the not sharing with her friends on playdates (we always put her very precious things away first and she's not expected to share them). Also she is stubborn, so if for example she accidentally hurts someone or suchlike I'll tell her it's OK, it was an accident and she's not in trouble, but she really must say sorry. She refuses to and we end up going home as I just can't tolerate her spite.

She shares well in preschool according to her teacher, so she does know how to.

Parenting is so bloody hard!