Handle temper tantrums of children

My son Adithya(4. 5 yrs) recently started developing a habit of getting agitated whenever we say something that he doesn't like. He shows faces,repeat what we say,shouts in anger and sometimes hit us back too. Initially,when this happens,even i(not atleast my wife) retaliates by shouting back or sometimes to the extent of giving him a hit on his hand. But this doesn't seem to help as the outcome was he never understood why i shouted or hit him back and ended up in more agitation and crying. These days we seldom try to avoid situations which makes him agitated,but this cannot be done always. So,whenever there are instances where he looses his cool,we try to keep calm and let him finish his anguish. Once he is back to normal,we try to calm him by hugging him/kissing him and try to explain the ill-effects of such behaviour. We tell him how rude and a bad person he will become in the future if he continues this. Most of the time he understands it. Lately whenever he is losing his cool,we remind him of his future and he 50%-60% of times doesn't cross the boundary and remain calm. If there is anything possible that we can do to avoid this,we have to do.

I have daughter Shreeya (3yrs) old. As a parent, the most important thing we keep in mind is that we never behave aggressively or talk loudly in front of our daughter. Children adopt our behavior very quickly. Secondly, We try to listen to her patiently always, because we should not expect her to be considerate at this age. Therefore, we try giving her the first priority and attention that is required. Sometimes, even if she gets irritated, we never shout back on her instead try to be patient, listen to her, and when she is calm, we try telling her that it was a bad behavior. The surprising pat is she understands and most of the time says sorry to us.