When you say they dont listen to you, what are you asking or saying to them exactly that they are ignoring? Are they ignoring "dont do that, dont act that way, no no no!" Or are they ignoring you if you say "If you continue doing that then this will be taken away or we arent going to do this if you dont start being good, well-behaved, polite, etc"?

In my job I listen to parents discuss their children more often than Im interested in hearing about it, but meh, and parents will often debate eachother on parenting styles, but a couple rules stick out for me that most parents are in agreement:

Never say "Stop being ___" as that labels them and only identifies their current behavior instead of offering a new behavior like if you said "Be nice, be polite, etc etc."

And that the only tried and and true form of punishment is taking away something thats important to them. I have one client who will bring in her child who is very well behaved and if she starts acting up the mother will say only once "If you want blah blah blah, you will be good and behave during my appontment. Its up to you." Only once did the girl misbehave during one appointment and the mother true to her word said "you made your choice, now lets see how long you want such and such taken away" The girl then spent the rest of that appointment behaving and being as sweet as pie because she knew her mother followed through with her punishments.


I would ask your sis to advise you on how to discipline. Im sure she understands that if you dont have a way to discipline the kids then they are going to suck the life out of you. She'll probably be flattered if you ask her for her parental expertise when administering disciplinary action. That way, once you guys have worked that out, you both will be on the same page, the kids will know you are, and they wont be as likely to run you over like a train when they come to visit.

For the record I dont have kids. So if you dont want to take my advice I totally understand, lol.