This morning I tried to make time and get through my morning prayers.  I tried to get back on track as this practice has been abbreviated recently.  Afterward I got up and made breakfast for everyone.  After breakfast I realized that I had let the kids start watching television and playing video games.  I called them all together and had my son read our daily schedule as a means of correcting this.  My son made a minimal effort to read and immediately tried to leave.  I attempted to correct him but he repeated this several times and then had a fit as I informed him of his duties that had to be completed before returning to play.  His defiant misbehavior continued until I lashed out angrily and stated an excessive consequence of losing electronic media all day.  Then while he was in his room he displaced his anger on his little brother and called him names and threw something and hit him.  I responded in kind and yelled and hit him in the arm.  Soon after, I gathered them all together and we spoke about correct behavior and I got my son to apologize.  everyone did their duties and I corrected the consequence to something more appropriate.

As I got underway with my homework, I heard my wife bickering with the kids.  I heard her escalate quickly to excessive consequences of throwing a toy away because it had been left on the back porch. I heard the kids sobbing and begging for her to renig while she berated them.  I came out for a drink of water and she started yelling at me about it.  I quickly got angry and went into a tirade at her for her intolerant and impulsive behavior.  Afterward I struggled to concentrate on my homework.