My DS2 has always been a challenge. He's a classic attention craver, and negative attention will satisfy him as much as positive attention. He doesn't mind being told off, and seems to like winding his older brother up more than anything else.
DS1 has a completely different personality; more sensitive and self-absorbed. He likes to immerse himself in complicated games. DS2 learned from a young age that the way to make DS1 notice him, and me to stop whatever I was doing and pay attention to him, was to sabotage something. Now that he's older (7) he's got a more wide ranging arsenal of tricks for winding up DS1, but the psychology is the same. (On a positive note, they do get on really well a lot of the time too. We have good days and bad days, but there aren't many days that are incident-free).
I have read positive parenting books, and found them helpful. I try to give him positive attention, praise him when he's being good, deal with the incidents calmly and consistently, and aim to not label him with self-fulfilling prophesies like "you always do that" or "why can't you ever behave yourself?" or "you're really mean". I wouldn't say I'm always successful at applying the approach, but I try, and find that it works better than anything else.
The trouble is, my DS1 (9) hasn't read the books, and as much as he's seen me trying to model that type of behaviour, he tends to deal with things more intuitively. He responds to clashes by raging loudly, often bursting into tears. If an apology is delivered with a smirk he shouts things like "You always say that but you never mean it!". Sometimes DS1 ends up angry at me because in the heat of the moment I tell him off for his handling of the situation, rather than dealing with DS2.
DS1 is an intelligent boy, and I'm hopeful that if I could find the right way to explain his brother's personality to him he could understand how his reactions might be influencing DS2's behaviour. What I'd really like is a book (preferably English rather than American), aimed at children, which explains all that in a simple, logical way. Any recommendations?