My beautiful kitty Emily (RIP) had 3 kittens when she was a year old, and although she was a young mum she did quite well at keeping them all in line with a bit of a loud meow and a gentle nip when they misbehaved, but the only little boy in the litter, Benjamin, found he just had too much energy to be contained in one small body, so he was always on the go, bouncing about, pouncing on anything that moved. Emily would tolerate this for as long as she could and then would give the normal sign that she'd had enough. If that didn't stop him and carried on with his munkypunk ways, she would distract him with one paw, and when he was looking at that paw, ready to pounce, she would place her other paw on his head and pin his head to the floor. She seemed to press down firmly with her claws just on the verge of coming out but not actually digging them in to him. This would cause him to lay as flat as he could to the ground and stay very still. It was a bit like when the kittens go floppy when picked up by the scruff. She would pull the paw she had been distracting him with away from him and just keep him still for a couple of minutes. It seemed to calm him from his playing frenzy and when she finally took the paw off his head, he would more often than not get up, walk a little way away and have a wash and find something else to do. He always looked the way cats do when they are trying to look like they haven't done anything wrong, like when they misjudge a jump and miss what they were aiming for. That kind of whistling "That wasn't me!" kind of look.
Since witnessing this behaviour from Emily, I have tried the head pressing move with many young cats that are playing a bit to boisterously and it has worked for me fairly well in most cases. Just hold the munkypunk still with firm but not heavy pressure on the top centre of the head and usually it's enough to get them to stop. If you combine it with a firm "NO" after a while the word no is enough without having to do the headlock.
