anger in 5 year old

We are having issues with our 5 year old son. He is the second. First one is 8. First one is easy. Our 5 year old displays explosive and violent temper when he is told no on any type of things even when he knows what the answer will be. He does not act like this at school and we don't know how to defuse his temper nor how to deal with it. He gets mad and hits me or his dad or his brother. One day we were taking our puppy out for a walk and on the way back he wanted to knock on someones door to ask if someone could play. The answer was no, we can't have a playdate right now. What he does when he does not get his own way is stomp, clench his teeth together and breathes hard in and out. Then he will continue to grap my arm and twist it or punch me. I say, "Get your hands off me. That is unacceptable behavior. You will go to your timeout when we get home.'"  Then he reached down and pull the hair on the pups head until the pup yelped. When asked why he did that, he said "because I couldn't do it to you". We got him punching bag to emit his anger on that when he gets mad so he would stop hitting his older brother. Today he wanted to see what was in someone's gift bag we were giving them. I told him he would see it in 5 minutes when our friends opened his gift. He threw a temper tantrum and hit me and would not stop. He was in the car and screaming and kicking the car. I walked away to cool down. Dad went out to the car to talk to him. He talked real nasty to his dad. We told him to get out of the car that he was no longer going to the playground with us as a consequence for his actions.  He left and kicked the body of the car and screamed and refuse to go to his bed. . I started to get a garbage can and and load it up with toys until he went into his bed  for a time out. Please help us learn how to cope with 5 year olds temper. Don't know why it is happening. We are a happily married family and no divorce or anything like that. Cindy

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

The part of his behavior that is unacceptable is the aggression. The rest of it is not so serious. He should be placed in time out immediately for any aggressive behavior. The fact that he is OK at school indicates that this is a parent/child interactional problem and can be dealt with via systematic behavior management. Read Lynn Clark's book SOS Help for Parents (see www.sosprograms.com) for an effective behavior management guide.