the children can not raise and educate themselves alone, according to my opinion, the role of parents is to assist them, to point out the things which are not OK. the fear donesn't have to do anything with that, it is rather a matter of respect.

try to talk to your son as much as possible about the problems explaining whay this and that is not good, find some picture books / cartoons which deal with the issues you're facing, when you see that he's loosing control apply 'time out' method ... and get lots of patience. good luck.

btw, my daughter will be three in may

I totally with you not to create fear. You want to be a loving and kind mother. Not the police of your child. I want the same thing.
It is not resepcet that causes a child to deny her own desire, but fear and need to apease and please. Praise and punishment are two sides of the same coin of controlling children. I don't use either. I struggled with this issue for a while. I used ot praise, timeout, threaten... I saw the fear. It doesn't work.
I thought my boys should listen to what I say and they didn't. Then I encountered the parenting style of Dr. Aldort, and recently her book, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, and my life has changed. I learned that, instead of fixing my child, I have to understand what doesn't work for him, or what I am not getting here that has to be addressed. I learned to use ONLY loving ways. It keeps trust and connection and it works so much better without fear or what parents call respect (it isn't).
My boys respect me precisely because I never punish, they can trust me, they know I care, and they know I won't just tell them how to behave, but I will find out the reason for their behavior so I can help.
I cannot explain it all. But the book and tapes do it exceptionally well.

I had the same problem with my daughter have recently started reading a book called "parenting the strong-willed child" by Rex Forehand & Nicholas Long. It is a five week program to fix the problem and I am at the end of the first week and can see the difference. It is worth a try