Its tough isn't it? Especially when you are tight with time.

Here is my 2 cents worth of input. For me the reality is discipline requires time. Naughty mat, naughty corner and all that needs time and ability to carry through which we don't all have.

When we went through a very rough patch with DD always taking her brother's toy away, acting out, including hitting and biting me when I intervened I ended up flexing up and dropping everything to ensure I mean business. Sometimes it took me 1.5 hours to enforce the "face the wall" (time out) strategy. This included repeatedly taking her back to the wall and telling her to turn around and face the wall and that when she stops crying and carrying on then I will talk to her. I never reason with her when she is crying or carrying on as I find it doesn't sink in. The only thing I will say when she is still very upset is that I am not happy with her behaviour and she must face the wall. I find having my DH being the go between person very effective. She would run to him to get support and he would without siding with anyone asks her what is going on, tells her that mummy is very upset with her and that she must go to the wall as mummy asks. He takes her there and helps her to calm down. Once she is somewhat calm I tell her why I am not happy with her behaviour, ask her to say sorry to her brother and/or to me and then hugs and kisses. Sometimes she need prompting from my DH to apologise. Sometime later in the day or at night I would revisit the incident, asking her why she thinks I made her face the wall which often I find she could articulate my rationale back to me quite clearly. I then tell her I don't like to punish her and it hurts me to punish her but she needs to treat her brother fairer as I would expect him to behave in the same manner.

We now have very few incidents of this nature. She still grab toys off her brother but as soon as I say give it back to your brother, he had it first, she would give it back. Sometimes it would be require me to count to three.

On reflection, I think my children respond to my discipline because I think firstly I don't do it often (the extreme with facing the wall thing). I always prewarn them with what I intend to do. My DH and will always be the go between person for each other when it is required. The rule is to be supportive to our very upset child but at the same time not to undermind the other partner.

Good luck with it all