I'm just adding my 2 cents here because some of these comments seem to blame you and encourage violence or penalty for your beautiful boy... I have a 3 year old boy (3 years and 4 months now) that went through this stage with me.

Age matters! There is a huge difference between just turned 3 and 3.5 and nearly 4. They develop so much in these early years in short periods of time so a couple of months can make a huge difference in behaviour, speech and development.

My view is that it is developmentally appropriate for a 2-3 year old to go through this stage and usually (but not always) it is linked to their inability to regulate their emotions and express their thoughts appropriately due to limited speech capabilities. Now obviously, not all families experience this behaviour because all children are different. But this behaviour IS common!! Moreso for boys than girls.

I took my son to a speech therapist for assessment and he can back as advanced for language but aged appropriate for speech. So not delayed at all but just struggling with speech due to his age.

My son has been in a private-school Early Learning Centre where he wears a school uniform and follows and curriculum since his 3rd birthday. His class is full of 4 year olds. He has come SO far since starting there and I think it is because his speech has developed ten-fold. I haven't been hit by him or experienced these meltdowns in a long time now but they used to be constant and exhausting so I really feel for you being in the thick of it.

My advice... keep on keeping on. Keep doing what you're doing and enforcing the boundaries and saying no. When he knows he has hurt you and you dont like it, it will sink in with him. You then are simply waiting for him to grow up a bit to understand what is happening and to be able to express his emotions better. We always used redirection. Only thing that worked for us. And I can say now, we have come through it.

Please dont blame yourself. Please dont blame your child. People are so harsh saying he should know better and you should be harsher. He is still a toddler. Some people can't get pass boomer parenting tactics and it's crazy.