3 and a half year old's behaviour

[Mummy205]

My 3.5 year old daughter is lovely, most of the time, but sometimes at home and often when we're out, she becomes very 'sassy' and I hate to use this word but her behaviour really does come across 'bratty'. She's spoken to friends and other adults in such a rude tone, I can see people pretend to act like they don't mind, but their body language suggests they are surprised and a bit put off by the way she has spoken to them. I feel really embarrassed when friends' children speak so politely.. yes, they can all have a lot of energy when they play etc. and I know that's all completely normal, but I worry that parents won't want their children to be friends with my daughter and that she'll push friends away herself if she continues.

Any advice for what I can do/say to prevent the very rude tone?

Examples of things she'll say (with a scrunched up face, full of attitude):

"I don't WANT that pink plate!!"
"Go AWAY, I don't want you to come in my corner"
"Ew no I HATE that"
"I don't WANT to play with him"
"I HATE boys"

I promise me and my husband don't speak to her like this!

DD1 is also 3.5. For things addressed to an adult, it doesn't happen unless she says it nicely. I would initially explain that people won't want to help her with things if she speaks to them in an unpleasant, demanding tone (or whinges, which is more our problem here) and ask her to say that again nicely – but if she can't nicely ask for a different plate, then she's getting the pink one. We've been doing this drill for awhile now, so we're down to 'try again please' or, on a good day, just raised eyebrows.

When it comes to interactions with other children, I'd probably start by asking her to think about how the other child might be feeling (how would she feel if someone said that to her? Happy, sad, angry?), and see if you can then help her from that to choosing to speak more kindly (and perhaps apologising, depending on what was said and how her grasp of apologies is) – but the bottom line would be that if she can't be kind, she doesn't play, and she'd be sitting next to me until she was ready to play nicely.

That said, 3.5 is still very little, and if there were something in particular she struggled with, bit possessive of a particular thing in the play park or really didn't gel with a particular child, etc., I'd be there helping avoid issues around that particular thing. We would also say that she doesn't have to play with anyone she doesn't want to, but she does have to be kind about it. In practice, that's quite complicated, really, and still very much a work in progress.