You need to put a stop to this by showing him that you are the one in charge. It can be difficult but children respond well to discipline. It doesn't help to just reprimand him - you need to get physical. If he pinches you - pinch back - HARD! If he bites BITE back - HARD! If he is cheaky give him a damn good hiding or force him physically to sit in a naughty corner.

It's important to shower him with love and praise when he is a good boy but you need to be absolutely ruthless when he is bad.

Get hold of the book toddler taming. It is really practical and helpful.
What your child is doing is perfectly normal for a 3 year old, however, your job as a parent is to teach him that it is not the appropriate way to behave.
When he is calm and there isn't arguing going on, explain to him that you are going to do a star chart and he will get stars for being good, and explain that when he is naughty you will be taking a treat away or giving time out.

When he starts a tantrum because you have said no (and you do have to say no, though you can do this without using the words, so distract him with something else or say "yes, we'll do it later" or something like that), then walk away from him, or if you are in public, just turn your back on him. Nobody performs without an audience. If he is still going on after a few minutes, pick him up and put him in his room or the bathroom or if you are at a shopping centre, in a toilet cubicle.
When he has finished his tantrum, you tell him that there will be no sweets that day, or no TV or that he is going to have to sit on the naughty mat for 3 minutes (set a kitchen timer).

At this age, you need to respond immediately to a problem, if you wait 15 minutes, he has already forgotten about it.

Good luck, we all go through this and as they reach 4 or 5 we start to find our feet a bit, when they immediately change how they behave just to flummox us.

give a harder spank he will listen

My son 4 last Monday also went through a horrible stage where he was trying to be in control of everything and would also bite, scratch trow tantrums he did it all, I tried spanking but that just seemed to make him even more frustrated so I put him on the toilet and told him it's the naughty chair (he has nothing to play with there either), I then time him because he is 4 he sits for 4 min and when the timer goes off he gets off the loo and I promise you he apologizes and I can have a discussion with him regarding his behavior - I s@#t you not it really works!!!!

My daughter is also 3 years old and has her share of tantrums and bad behaviour. I used to think that the answer to the problem was shouting louder than her and providing a hard smack to the bum. This is effective if you are looking for a quick win, but over time I noticed that as i smacked her, she would start smacking me back. She also started mimicking my behaviour on the dog and her dolls.

I watched a lot of parenting shows and read comments on sites like this one. By doing this I formulated a mixture of methods to use.

Always make sure that when you reprimand the child you go down on your hunches. They must be able to look in your eye when you are talking to them.

Try and make your voice as low as possible. The more baratone the better.

Tell them in a firm, low voice that if their behaviour is not acceptable. If they carry on behaving like this you will take them to the naughty corner.

If they still do not respond, pick them up and take them to a secluded corner with nothing to stimulate their attention. (The general rule is a minute for each year of age, so in your case 3 minutes in the corner), however, the first few times they will scream and try to get out. Avoid eye contact at all cost, but make sure they do not leave until they have quietened down. This may seem difficult at first, but their natural boredom at being left alone with no entertainment or interaction will overcome their anger eventually.

But how do you get them to STAY in the naughty corner. My daughter just gets up and walks away, yes I keep taking her back but she keeps getting up and walking away? She is three, so do we just do that for 3 minutes??

I have raised 2 of my own and 17 foster children - I KNOW what I'm talking about. No shouting, No HITTING. There is a nerve running along the muscle between the neck and shoulder. When your little angel won't listen to reason you grip this muscle between your fingers and pinch. From the first time they resist you, say:" LISTEN!" (very clearly and a hundred times a day if necessary). Teach them this word and enforce it without any shouting or any show of anger - by pinching the nerve in his neck. Make eye contact and show you mean business. Never let up as they soon take advantage of a weak parent. They learn from very young that when Mommy or daddy says:"Do this or stop that." you respond immediately or feel the pain. Say what you mean (calmly) and do what you say and you will have a little lamb. Reward good behavior, shower them with affection and NEVER say negative things like:"You are NAUGHTY or you are a THIEF!" or any negative thing. But say:"No, we don't do that. We never steal. You are not a liar, so why are you lying to me?" That way you make them believe they are good, honest, kind and whatever you want them to be and that their wrong behaviour is contrary to what they really are. My first is 28 and my last is 2 and they all obey me without question.

I think you're probably not a parent and have no idea what raising a toddler is actually like. You need to get physical with your child at some level, even if it's just restraining them as they try to kick, punch and beat you black and blue with their stuffed toys.

I disagree with the word "hard", but I think what the poster meant is "harder than you would like", because you love your child and hurting them is not what you want to do, but sometimes its necessary. I don't think this should be a first resort, I normally start by talking slowly and calmly, and trying to calm her down, then proceed to trying to physically restrain her from hitting me (normally by just keeping her at arm's length), then by faux-smacking (put your hand over their hand and smack the back of your own hand LOUDLY) which makes her look down and check whether she's hurting and sometimes shocks her out of the tantrum. If all these tactics fail or she's doing something that really requires immediate attention (like trying to bite my finger off - she's drawn blood on one occassions before when I didn't smack her in time) then I smack. I aim for sensitive areas where a light smack will produce a short-lived pain with no physical damage, so good targets are the back of the hand, the upper arm or upper leg.

This is NOT child abuse. It's a vital lesson in empathy, and failing to teach your children that causing pain to others will result in them experiencing pain themselves is raising them to be little sociopaths who have no understanding of, or connection with, the pain they cause in others. Too many people think they're psychologists and quote BF Skinner ("Bloody Fool" Skinner) and cite his experiments in conditioning to show that negative reinforcement (punishment) has no connection to improved behaviour, but they're completely ignoring the fact that these experiments were limited in scope and ignored long-term changes in cognitive schema, in other words childhood development.

Look around at schools these days and you'll see a ton of these little sociopaths running around the school yard. Their parents are devoted to the idea that hitting their child is "child abuse", and that they should never raise their hand to their child. As a result these little tyrants rule the house, they can inflict consequence-free pain on their parents and siblings, and they do the same to their playmates at school. Every parent should be required to smack their child, not forbidden by this new poorly thought-out, badly researched and invasive child protection act.

Oh, and you'll get to keep all your fingers if you're not afraid to give a short sharp smack when it's necessary.

my son just turned 3 and i am a single mother - have to be the good and bad parent. my son has these exact tantrums and listening problems as everyone else on this topic. when i hit him lightly, he laughs. when i hit him harder he will cry and then family members wil tell me "dont hit him, his just a child" - are they giving me the right advise? and also if i do hit him harder he will shout back and me and start crying and hitting me and saying " why u hit me" and just the look on his face terrifies me because i think im doing something to scar him because he will shout back, start crying. we hardly go out alone anymore because he doesnt listen to me and i cant handle it when he ignores me.

if i tell him no he cant have chocolate in the morning he will cry for 30min or fight back.

how do you know that when you hit them, you are not scarring them for life? Like when he sees his dad he completely ignores me and then i look like the idiot because im the one who lives with him 24/7 and his dad sees him now and then and i dont think he hits him like i do. i also dont want his dad and his family to think im abusing the child-when is discipline different from abuse?

You are not a child abuser sisters you just trying to teach you chils waht is good & what it wrong. Just don't listen to people who call you names. The people who are abusing their kids don't jus slap or pinch their kids, they hit them with all sorts of this thing & as far as i'm cocern he/she can trace your IP & give to the police because he/she does not know anything about rasing kids, maybe he/she does not have one. Ka seso re re THUPA E OTLOLLWA E SA LE METSI!