Your job is to get your children to behave in a way that keeps _you_ liking _them_.

I don't mean that in the sense of "unconditional love" but a pragmatic day to day annoyance and dissatisfaction that keeps building up. Don't accept that as normal.

If you start resenting the presence or behavior of your children you need to act. Better act long before that.

Kids are little psychopaths when they are young; they will manipulate the shit out of you if you let them. They can bring this behavior into adolescence and adulthood if not corrected. They absolutely need to be told, in no uncertain terms, to cut out the shit every once in a while, that teaches them you aren't going to put up with their manipulation and shows your high expectations for their behavior. It also shows them that there's going to be people in the world (bosses, for example) who are just going to expect something from you. That's not being cold, that's being a damn good parent.

And you know what, they actually do learn over time and their behavior does improve.

Saying "okay darling, I'll take your shoes off," doesn't built respect, quite the opposite, it teaches them to continue to manipulate you and that leads to a massive amount of disrespect.

The person I respect most in life is my grandma and she is the only one who called out the bullshit in me when she saw it. Same with my baby cousin (I'm more than 20 years older than him), he's a teenager now and I'm his favorite person in the world and I was the only person who called him out and let him know I expected him to behave around me, his parents let him walk all over them. He certainly had and still has zero respect for his parents.

Speaking of my baby cousin, his dad once asked me why I correct his grammar. I told him I didn't mind how he talks around his friends, but I wanted him to learn to speak correctly for the times he needs to portray himself professionally, like a job interview.