How do you deal with a defiant 3 year old?

My 7 y/o son listens to everything. My 3 y/o daughter listens to nothing. What can I do to get her to listen? I don't want her memories of her childhood to be of us yelling at her and of us telling her she's not being good. My son is affected because he misses out when she's not good. Any advice or something I could research would be greatly appreciated.

How do you deal with a defiant 3 year old?

my boys are 8 and 5... and still don't listen half the time! its tough!!! one thing that helps at your daughters age is giving them choices when you can, so they feel like they're not being told what to do as much LOL like "do you want to hop to bed, or crawl to bed?" or when she needs to get dressed, letting her pick some of the outfit (like chose between 2 shirts). Also- just validating their feelings helps a lot like " I know its early to be leaving the house and you don't want to be dressed yet... mommy doesn't either. But right now, we have to leave. So lets do this" or like "I know its not fun cleaning up your toys, but We don't want to step on them. What song should we listen to while we clean up?" That kind of stuff... just to help them not feel like they're being told what to do as much LOL

How do you deal with a defiant 3 year old?

I agree with the advice from Ml110, Also, 3 is a difficult age. Both of my boys were tyrants at that age. It gets much better at 4 & 5. Hang in there :)