Two year old tantrums

This is my lovely middle child who is 2 and a half, snuggling up to his current favourite parent :-)

He is a sweet easy going child, but he is now going through the kinds of tantrums usually associated with his age. I think he is trying hard to control the world around him, and so he always wants a specific person to help him whether it is passing him a tissue, opening a door, or serving him food. He will select the person - either my husband, myself or his older sister - and regardless of who else is offering to help him he will shout and scream unless the chosen one fulfils the required task.

Some recent examples include: he dropped a toy on the floor when sitting at the table and whinged about it until his 4 year old sister felt sorry for him and picked it up. He then promptly threw it on the floor again and said 'I want Mummy to pick it up!'. When he was stuck behind a stairgate and my husband opened the gate for him, he slammed it shut again and waited for me to come and let him out. I went to pick him up from pre-school and he wanted Daddy to get him. He shouted and screamed all the way home. Daddy was at home, but instead of being happy to see Daddy to tried to throw his bag and coat outside and drag Daddy to pre-school so that we could start again!

So what is the best way to tackle this emerging struggle for control? For the time being I have been looking for other opportunities to offer him a choice during his day, ie 'would you like the blue or the grey jumper?', 'which colour plate would you like?', 'do you want to fetch your yoghurt?'

I think I need to take a firmer line on who helps him though. I continue to pick him up from pre-school to offer some consistency when my husband is at work and can't pick him up. But, we have given in a few times and brought in the required parent to offer him food or help him get dressed etc. Maybe leaving him stuck behind the stairgate might have helped him learn that lesson more quickly. Like so many things the little ones do, it was comical at first, so we didn't set any ground rules for dealing with it.

Let me know your tips for helping get through the tantrum years! x