Struggling with disciplining child

My girl just says no back to me if I tell her no 🤦🏻‍♀️

Yes I’ve found saying no basically does nothing 🤪 I try and either remove the thing, or focus more on reinforcing the positive behaviour (I.e. if he hits, say no, but then ask him to show me being gentle etc). Not sure if it’s working or not 😂 but feels a bit better than saying no and him just wilfully ignoring me constantly - ha!

Exactly as you've said here, especially when they have quite good speech and are speaking more, this age can very easily be mistaken for being 'naughty' as they're speaking and people think they have the understanding to go with it. Whereas their brain doesn't have the capacity to have a huge understanding at this age, so even if they act like they understand, they actually don't have the ability to understand as much as they may make out they can. This is why more tantrums happen, we expect that they should know more/ be able to do more etc. The word 'no' to them, although they know it means they shouldn't do something, doesn't actually mean 'no' as it does to us. They need explaining why rather than just 'no' and more positive reinforcement, removing them away from what they shouldn't be doing etc rather than just a no. This should help and really limits tantrums with my little boy. This doesn't mean it isn't hard and there are times when I do just say no 😩🤣

I will add, I have worked in the early years for 14 years so I am quite clued up on children's brain development and the language that should be used etc xx