Gentle Disc. in these situations what does it look like

[seamama11]

My son is a few months over 4 and my daughter is 2.5 Please help!
They love each other and play together throughout the day nicely, but they also fight and I just don't know what to do.
She hits him over something, he hits her.
AND HE YELLS AT HER OVER EVERYTHING. We are not a yelling family, and we don't punish. I have never even really done timeouts. In the last few months we have put my son in his room when he is yelling, hitting, and more or less out of control.
He is an excellent kid all around, this behavior is new, although he has always been intense and stubborn.
What do you do when your kids are constantly yelling and hitting.
I try to separate them, but they don't stay in different rooms to play. I try over and over to calmly say, Charlie we don't talk to people like that, but at least 10 times a day he yells meanly at her. My mom friends take toys away when their kids misbehave and are mean, but that doesn't make sense to me.
It boils down to this: He gets mad and yells, when we try to talk to him sternly but lovingly he makes faces at us, calls us stupid or tells us he doesn't like us.
It isn't all day, and some days are better than others.
I guess I am looking for concrete ideas/consequences when siblings yell, hit, and are rude to each other and their parents.
I know everything is a phase, and he is great at preschool and with his friends.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have never done timeouts, don't yell spank, take away toys.....and I feel good about that, but at the same time I don't see his behavior getting any better.

[sewaneecook]

I like Barbara Coloroso's approach to violent behavior. Her line is, "you hit, you sit." For a younger child that may be sitting with a parent explaining why hitting hurts, but for an older child it means that the situation escalated so much that hitting happened and he needs to be separated from that situation. Giving him other ways to express his feelings ... hit a pillow, yell in the bathroom, go run around the house to let out his frustrations, etc. I have a 4 YO DS who has started hitting more (despite never been hit or spanked in his life!). Some days the above advice helps, other days it doesn't. Overall, I think he has improved, but each day is different. One other thing that has helped my DS is taking out wheat. He becomes more crazy and violent after eating it, so we limit the amount he eats.

[crowcaw]

Have you read Siblings Without Rivalry by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish? I've used a lot of the suggestions with my now 5 yo twins and it helped me through the 4's. They still lash out in anger at each other some, and still yell at each other some, but are learning to control themselves and incidents are becoming farther between.

For the faces and name calling when the parent talks to dc, I started a thread about that recently, and have been following advice given but it's still an issue for us and a work in progress.