How on earth do I stop my 5 year old hitting/pushing/pinching?

[Dancergirl]

You'd have thought by child no 3 I'd know what I was doing!

It's mainly directed towards her sisters and sometimes me when shes cross, angry or frustrated. I always pull her up on it and say no very firmly. Sometimes give her a warning that if she does it again x or y will happen which I follow through with. Occasionally I've lost my temper and smacked her which I know is the wrong thing to do and I'm not proud of it, but what worries me is that she immediately knows she's crossed the line. But I don't want to smack and there must be a better way.

Time out or equivalent wouldn't work because it often happens in the car so not really practical. Don't really want to faff around with stickers either.

What can I do? She often brings tears to the eyes of my older 2 dds and I want it to stop.

It is hard to deal with things when you're driving because as you say, you can't use timeout easily. One thing I sometimes do is to say that if they do that again they may have x or y taken off them for a day. With our DD, who is a similar age, its usually a teddy or a book or her only Wii game.

What works for us better though is that we have a bit of a family treat on a Saturday night with later bedtime and a couple of things like popcorn. A quick reminder that if they misbehave they'll miss out usually does the trick although only tend to use this one on Saturdays.

This talks about toddlers but think there are still some good tips you could use and you may find this book helpful too.