My friend has 3 DC.
DC1, boy, 5 and a half.
DC2, girl, 2 and a half.
DC3, girl, 2 months.
She is having problems with their behaviour and has been offloading to me. I want to help, but don't know how.
The older two children are both very bright, but lack social skills. The boy is very bad at losing, for example. It's become something his teachers are starting to notice. He is also very reliant on his mother for simple things like puttng butter on his toast etc. He dislikes being told what to do.
The next one, the girl, is very aggressive. I have lost count of the amount of times she has hit, scratched and pushed my 2yo. She has started doing this with adults now as well. She also screams for hours. Not sad screaming, but rage screaming. Yesterday, for example, she screamed from 7:30pm until 11pm. This morning on the phone I could hear her screaming again. She says no to everything. My friend lets her choose what to wear, for example, but she refuses to then put it on.
My friend is very laid-back and fun with the kids, but is beginning to think that she ought to be more firm. I agree.
What can she do to get some discipline into the house? I was thinking of suggesting a reward chart - maybe listing the five biggest problem areas of the two eldest children and rewarding them with a star on days when they behave in these areas. With something like a movie of their choice for getting above x amount of stars in a week.
Does anyone have any other suggestions? With the new baby, my friend sounds like she's going under. I have offered to do shopping, housework, cooking etc to take the load off, but it's the childrens' behaviour which is the real issue.