discipline for 2 yr old boys

you just described Taine to a tee. we just put him in his room and said he could come out when he was calm and tried to reassure himwhen we left..we are slowly coming out the other side but he DID throw a tantrum when i asked him if he wanted to say hi to santa

We use the naughty spot consistently with Fay, same age a jaxon, and it has mixed results, but works well wtih tantrums and screaming. Rolling on the floor tantrums i step over and ignore, saying that I will speak to yu when you calm down. have you read Toddler training by Christopeher Green? It was recommended to me and has been a great help with behaviour controll, including hitting and biting.
fay is in time out for the minute per year, and each time she comes away from the spot she is back for a futrther two minutes, then I explain again why she is in time out, she says dorry and we have a hug, then carry on with whatever we do. It carries well when we are out as I just find a quiet spot away from all the excitement and do the same thing. she really knows that Neil and I are in charge now but I'd say that it has taken 6 months for it to be this effective. I remember one stressfull dinnertime when she was in time out for 16 minutes for getting up from the table, Now she never leaves the table without saying "Fay done"
It will come but it is cnsistency, you need to find something that you are happy with and do it each time he acts up for it to be effective. The first few times we spent most of the two minutes running around the house saying 'Fay you're in time out get on the naughty spot' but she got after a few days

Vincent does a similar thing. He doesn't midn when i go out or anything like that, but he has started beign really rough & hitting & kicking. Not hard, but still doing it. Time out doesn't really work coz the cheeky sod knows he needs to say sorry. His naughty spot is the chair at the end of his bed. He sits there & after 20 secs i hear him saying "have to say sorry to mummy" so it doesn't really do much. I do always make him tell me what he did that made me angry / upset & ask him what he needs to do to make mummy happy again. He tells me Sorry & that he needs to give kiss & hug. But i make sure he tells me what he is saying sorry for. He used to be so good at listening to me etc but has just started totally ignoring me!

Sorry i;m no help as i'm in pretty much the same situation.

Lachie did this at that age and we used time out. It took a long time to work and just when we were about to give up it started to work...phew!
He also at the same time went through the separation anxiety phase. So when ever i left the room even just to go to the toilet I would turn to him and say "Mum mum's just going to the toilet, I'll be right back!" and when I come back i make a big entrance and throw my arms wide and say "I came back!!!!!" I did that with every little thing and he soon became sucure in letting me go knowing I would come back.