Page 35 - How Changing Your Anger Can Help You Be a Better Parent book

Recognizing your angry trigger thoughts

One of the first steps to changing your anger is to determine what kind of trigger thoughts are
most likely to get you emotionally dysregulated.

The best way to reduce your anger is to change your thinking patterns when you get into that
angry moment with your child.

Once you start to feel your anger building up inside of you, your thinking becomes overwhelmed
by the emotion and your thoughts become distorted.

Often times in this angry moment your brain processes the information based on previous angry
situations that you’ve experienced.

It's those trigger thoughts that make connections that may not be accurate or may be significantly
distorted.

Consider your trigger thoughts in three different categories:

● Assumed intent - thinking that your child is misbehaving deliberately to upset you.

● Magnification - thinking the situation is worse than it really is.

● Labeling - using negative pejorative words to describe your child or his or her behavior.

Let's take a look at each trigger thought category to try to assess where your trigger thoughts may
be coming from.

In answering these questions, try to be as honest as possible as it will help you assess where you
need to change your thinking patterns to change your anger.

Assumed Intent

When you’re angry at your kids do you tend to say to yourself:

I can’t stand it. I’m done.

You’re trying to drive me crazy.

You’re just trying to test me to see how far you can go.

You’re tuning me out intentionally.

You’re taking advantage of me.

You’re doing this deliberately to get back at me (hurt me, spite me).

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