I will "slip up" and say/ask "please do xyz"... they won't move or will tell me no (which really irritates me! it's a trigger for me!) so I respond with an honest "I'm really sorry. I did ask, but I didn't mean to. I meant to say "do xyz!" To which they will whine and complain and do it (and I will start singing Do everything without complaining from our Bible verse CD
)
Since it is a trigger for me to hear them tell me no I try try try to never give them the option to say no when I really don't want to hear it. Like if we are already having a bad day or something. The times I "slip up" and ask when I don't mean to are when we've been having really good days for a while, so I'm generally able to remind myself easily without losing it.
I do ask them to do things sometimes when I really mean it as a question. That sounds like "will you please xyz?" When I say that they know they can tell me no. And then someone else generally will try to "polish their halo" and gain favor
and will say "I'LL DO IT!!!"
And now that Jayden is getting older and has a handheld video game thingy I find myself having to bite my tongue and go back to 3yo language... "Turn the game off, put it down, and xyz"
My kids also don't do well with transitions... I can't really do the "five more minutes" thing. So I don't tell them things to do unless I want it done then. It makes it so much easier to get them to do something. It's very consistent that when I say something it happens then.