I know this has been raised many times before. My DC1 has had a lot of change recently (new house, new nursery, potty training, new sibling, holidays) and tends to hit out at me when stressed, though he's not done it for ages. But over the last few days the tantrums have been awful, and yesterday he scratched, kicked and hit me when I asked him to let another child have a go on the park swing. He seems to be having a big blow up every day, pushing boundaries I guess, and fortunately it's only ever me he's violent towards (I never leave him alone with his sister). Nursery say he's a delight there, as he was at the previous place. But for my own personal reasons I have a real issue with the physical nature of the tantrums and I'm struggling with how to respond. I know they are normal, and reading up on 3 year old behaviour here I know this is a phase they go through, particularly during times of change, so please I'm not looking for judgement of my child or my parenting but rather things that have worked for others in terms of handling the actual tantrum and the aftermath. My DH suggested I hold him and turn him outwards while he's tantruming so that he can't hurt me, I tried this yesterday and he calmed down quicker. I make him say sorry, and we talk about why he's saying sorry, but that can often take an age and ends up being shouted at me anyway, so I then insist it's said nicely. I try to explain we love each other, we don't hit, we don't shout. But as it's happened 2 days in a row, I feel like he's not listening and certainly not respecting what I say. I haven't tried star charts or anything like that as he's still a bit too young as there isn't really anything I can think of to withhold as punishment that he'd particularly miss. What can I try to get us through this difficult time so that it doesn't feel like every interaction is negative?