DD (5) encouraging DS (2.5) to be naughty... HELP at end of my tether

[MrsBigD]

We've recently moved house so I'm making allowances for naughty behaviour however, dd has started to encourage ds to do things she's just been told off for. How do I stop that? I do punish her (no tv etc.) if I catch her doing it, but e.g. earlier all the cuddly toys managed to 'walk' down the stairs (a novelty as we used to live in a flat) but I didn't see who did it. I'm guessing ds on behest of dd. I made them both tidy them up even though dd protested as she claims it was ds who did it...

Please tell me I'm not alone and also is there a way of dealing with this besides turning into a demented screaming banshee?

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Our two ds's are exactly these ages and exactly the same thing's happening here! I think it's quite funny and endearing that this is how they're bonding, so it's not driving me too mad yet! When I do get cross, I tell ds1 that he'll get punished just as much as ds2 - so that if ds2 does something naughty and has to go to his room, so does ds1 if he's instructed him...! So far this works quite well. But it is lovely to see them working in a little team..!

My 2 do it too - ds is 3.5 and dd 2.4. Rules are that if she does it at his request, they both get punished but the sanction applied to him is twice as severe - ie time-out AND no bedtime story.

Found that dd also needs to be taught that she does not need to do all the things that ds tells her to do (he has a very dominant personality), so we have told her that she has a magic roar (daft I know) and if she doesn't want to do what ds tells her, she can roar at him. Surprisingly this has worked quite well.

There are also days when I quite like the demeted screaming banshee approach myself!

Good luck.

thanks gooseyloosey it's good to know I'm not on my own.

Strangely enough (not) ds was fine today with dd being back at school well fine to the extend that he still doesn't listen to a word I say but at least no bickering and mischief