Sorry seems to be the hardest word...

Being a parent is not the easiest thing as I am sure that those of you who have seen one in action will know. We have two children and with our first we worked out a series of boundaries and punishments that seemed to work. She would know how far she could go and we knew what was an appropriate punishment. Now with our second we have tried the same tactics but they don't work. If we raise our voice with him or are angry with him he doesn't take it well and reacts very badly becoming very stubborn and cross himself. So we have started a new technique of being very calm and reasonable with him, still firm but not raising our voice. He reacts fairly badly becoming stubborn and cross but at least we aren't adding to the problem.

Today he had a disagreement with his sister and ended up hitting her. So I decided that he should say sorry. I told him this in a calm way, put him on the stairs (he is in hysterics by this point) and kept letting him know that we want him to say sorry. We kept this up and eventually he calms down and says sorry to his sister - it only took an hour and a half. So it seems that this strategy might work but we will have no time for anything else.