Nearly 3 year old dd is becoming violent towards me (her mum) and only me? What do I do!

[Newmamfeb2021]

My dd will be 3 in Feb. Whenever she doesn't get her own way she's started hitting me, kicking me and head butting. Tried the "step" and this seems to make things worse. She will not say sorry unless her dad says she must say it. She will sit on the step for as long as I can stand to hear her cry for and still not say sorry for her behaviour. I have tried to ignore her and she just gets worse with hitting. I have raised my voice and she laughs. I'm getting a bit desperate. Has anyone else experienced this?

We say "in this house we hug not hit/ kick/spit, shall we have a hug"

For us it defuses the situation much quicker than any discussion about violence being bad and then a battle about getting a sorry out of her. It seems to take away the "fun" of lashing out as the result is the same as if she is nice.

She went through a phase of jumping off the coffee table. To counter this we put her bean bag near the coffee table and every time she climbed on the coffee table she was put on the bean bag. We didn't set a time and she could climb straight off if she wanted but it didn't take too long for her to get bored of the game and stop. If she's stuck in a cycle of doing a behaviour we don't want we sit her next to us until she chills. Taking her from the situation even for the seconds she is sat next to us when don't make her sit next to us for a time period breaks the cycle.