Tan.

El is doing this a bit at the moment too - not the biting but SO much hitting and throwing things either at Izzy or just near her. Its just horrible. We've tried a few things, including resorting to smacking which we now try REALLY hard to avoid after one day when DH smacked Ellie for hitting Izzy, and Ellie responded by saying "But Daddy, you're allowed to hit". From the mouths of babes huh.

With the refusing to do stuff, I definitely agree with PP with the choices. I find that if I let the girls choose what they're going to wear/play with/do (either totally free choice or from options I provide), then I don't get so many little heels being dug in. And honestly, I don't see anything wrong with bribery. We teach our children that there are consequences for bad behaviour, so I don't see a problem with them knowing that there are sometimes rewarding consequences for good behaviour.

As for nastiness towards Iz, the only thing that I'm finding works in any way is to put El in time out and spend all that time out period with Iz. It heads off any "reward" El gets of my attention, and gives her the message that if she is nasty to Iz, then I stay with Iz and not her. It obviously is also nice for Iz to get a bit of love too. Once time out is over I always make El apologise to Iz and then I leave them to it. I'm also trying to give the girls more one-on-one to try and negate their need to do something naughty to get my attention.

Good luck lovely. It is incredibly hard to deal with when one of your darling children is inflicting pain and hurt on your other darling child.