i have had this for the last 2 weeks with my mindee he is 3.5 (im his childminder) and he has been a real handful, i can't shout, send him to bed etc so i have to use time out, which means no talking no eye contact, no toys until he apologises and does as he is told.
he has punched and spat at myt dd and has kicked me.
yesterday i was determined to get him to behave.
firstly you need to be very calm, do not raise your voice as that will only get you het up and she will realise you have lost control and won't listen. try stickers on her jumper if she gets thru the morning without being too bad (obviously she will never be perfect but somewhere near it is better)
choose your battles.
give her smaller portions of food so she has a chance of finishing it and getting her reward
praise the tiny things she does right, do activities with her that will bring out the best in her - something she really enjoys or is good at and really praise her loads.
i kow its hard when you get to the end of your teather i have had this with my dd1, is there anyone that can have the kids even just for 1 night to give you a break/ rest so that you can think about how you want to be, you say you don't want to be a shouting mum - so what kind of mum do you want to be? have a rest and think about and when they come back give them the mother you think they deserve. one thing that used to help me when my dd1 was little was to think about what her memories from her childhood will be like when she older, i really didnt want her to only remember me shouting at her and getting annoyed with her.
Think about (this is now a work thing but cant see why it wont work for you)
what is it like for a child here? what things have they got to play with, what environment is it? what kind of attention do they get?