u/Additional-Lie7993

Hey!

I live in Sweden, a country where there are no street dogs and almost no homeless dogs apart from a shelter where some dogs wait for a new home and are well taken care of. I travel a lot though and it pains me to see the suffering of other animals especially dogs in other countries. I am already donating to four paws and a Balinese shelter on a monthly basis, but what else can I do? I am not in the position of owning a dog right now, but when I am I will obviously only adopt. I wish we could have a shelter here where we take in dogs from other countries and I could volunteer there, but there is no such thing. I feel so helpless about it and I am desperate to do something, anything. Do you have any advice for me at all?

How to handle wxtrenely bossy 4 year old?

Hey!

I work with kids and my degree is very closely related to developmental psychology. I do understand this is an age where kids are exploring boundaries and that this is completely normal and age appropriate behavior. The issue is, I am not this girl's parent and so I have a hard time navigating my role as her "auntie"/"friend".

My friends have a 4 year old who loves me. She wants to spend all her time with me when I am there. She has a very assertive nature and knows what she wants and lets that be heard. Lately she however is bossing me around a lot to the point where it is difficult to handle. She does it to everyone to dome degree but since she likes me so much it takes on a different charactet around me. The whole time I visit them all I hear are demands, sit here, do this, play with that, say this word, hold me etc. Or "you can't do this x and y", " you aren't allowed to sit here, you aren't allowed to drink water on the couch, you aren't allowed to talk to my mom". I try to pick my battles speak nicely to her and remind her at times that I can do x and Y and explain why I am. Stand my ground when I can't go and play with her right away and explain why and tell her I will after a certain task is finished. But it doesn't help.

If I was her parent I would know how to handle it but I am not so I feel I dont have that many options. At preschool she acts similarly but it seems adults find it funny and label her as the teacher. I worry in part it will make her have a hard time finding friends later on because eventually kids also tire of this. Whenever I do not do what she says or need some time to talk to her mom/dad as adults she gets very mad. She kept interrupting us once every minute one time and her parents did have a talk with her but this upset her at me even more and she said she was mad at me and I was never allowed to speak with her, my boyfriend, her mom or be or play woth them ever again because she was mad. And when I tried to talk to her about how it was omay for her to feel msd at me but that she couldn't decide these things for others she became very rude and was telling me to leave in a very rude and harsh way.

How can I deal with these situations next time they arise as the "auntie" ?