I'm looking for any advice or experiences on how to deal with dd. She's almost 20 months and is very territorial. I know that sharing is hard for them to get at this age and they are very egocentric, but she gets aggressive when other kids approach her while she is playing with her toys and that is obviously not acceptable. Honestly she has been this way for almost 5 months now, it ebbs and flows in it's severity but I feel like what I'm doing should be working better by now. Our only real problem comes in open play or playdate type situations where dd has a toy and another child approaches her. I can see it in her face she gets this panicked face and lashes out. It used to be just pushing their hand away fairly aggressively, but today she started scratching and now I feel desperate to change the behavior. Sorry for the novel but here is what I have been doing, and I don't see any real improvement other than a few ebbs and flows in the behavior.

Basically I am on top of her in all free play situations, if I see a child approaching her I remind her to make nice. If she doesn't make nice I am right there to grab her hand and firmly tell her no, we make nice because it makes people happy. Today when she actually went to scratch I took her out of the room and gave her my speech out there. I still feel like what I am doing isn't working, because it's not clicking with her that it's ok for kids to approach her and that she can't behave like this.

Is there anything I can say or do that may work better? I'm getting so desperate because dd really is a sweetheart and I hate that others see her like this. She never takes toys from others, loves playing with others in structured settings, is so affectionate with other kids when toys aren't involved.... It's only when she feels threatened that another will take her toy away Chat Icon