Military School

My son can't control his anger.   He goes into redline mode so quickly and when he does, he makes poor decisions.   Today he was at the counter eating and listening to something.  His sister was in our bedroom getting out of the tub.   I went outside and three minutes later came in to find him at his seat, but his sister screaming about how he'd slapped her very hard. 

He didn't like her interrupting what he was listening to by announcing things over Alexa, so he got up, asked her to stop (rather rudely and commandingly I'm guessing), and because he didn't like her reply, took action.   

And this isn't an outlier situation.   Granted, she provokes him, but it isn't just his sister, although what with COVID-19 it is mostly his sister.   Still, it's not okay for him to hit her or her to hit him.   She knows how to make it tough on him though and no matter what, I told him, a judge wouldn't care about the extenuating circumstances, he hit her unprovoked with anything other than words.   And that was going to be always in the favor of the other person. 

I brought up military school.   He threatened to run away, as all children threatened with military school do.   The conversation went in circles for a while but in the end, later when he'd calmed down, he said he wanted to work on it.   

We're going to need some guidance on this one as I don't know how to adequately handle his anger in such a way that we're helping him control the anger, which is the underlying root of the physical outburst.   He's not a bad child in any way, he just likes things his way, which I suppose we all do to some degree or other. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son argued that he got physical with the neighbor girls, "to stop them from breaking something of a friend of his."  He didn't get that it wasn't okay, even to protect some piece of property.   He still needs some perspective.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter asked us if her eyes were open today and we checked her raised glasses area and said mostly they were.   She said, "man, I don't know how you keep your eyes open all day.  It is so hard."