Page 50 - How Changing Your Anger Can Help You Be a Better Parent book

These are assertive communication styles, assertive communication strategies.

So, let's go back to Tanya and Nicole. Again, Nicole sometimes has a challenge in remembering
her responsibility of cleaning up the kitchen after dinner. Now Tanya was given an opportunity to
change her reaction to this frustrating situation.
Often times Tanya had responded in a very explosive way - very fearful - sometimes using
shaming words, and sometimes sarcasm. Tanya shared that she would say things to Nicole like,
“So what part about cleaning up the kitchen do you not understand?”

And things would escalate from there. That emotional build up inside of Tanya, that emotional
flooding, that emotional hijacking at times, was really causing Tanya to say and do things that
didn’t change Nicole's behavior and were causing some challenges in their relationship.
So, what I had suggested and what Tanya was able to do with Nicole, was a combination strategy
of emotional regulation and assertive, rather than aggressive, communication.

First Tanya would need to get into a much clearer thinking place herself - she would need to get
to a calmer place before responding to her daughter. A dysregulated adult has a very low chance
of being able to calm a dysregulated child.

Tanya was able to take a pause and do some intentional deep breathing. Just a couple of slow
deliberate belly breaths helped Tanya to calm down quickly. This helps Tanya’s physical
appearance to be more relaxed when she responds to Nicole. If her body is actually more relaxed,
she will look more relaxed when communicating with Nicole. This way, Tanya won’t look “scary”
to Nicole when she shows her anger.

Intentional breathing also helps Tanya shift to a calmer brain state, actually changing the brain
chemicals to more positive ones being released at that emotional moment.

Tanya was also able to use some more assertive communication to show her anger. She said,
“Nicole, when you don’t clean up the kitchen after dinner, I feel frustrated and disappointed. Since
we've talked about that so many times before I'd like you to go downstairs and clean up the kitchen
like we've agreed.”

Consider the change in tone and messaging - how much more assertive and neutral Tanya’s
words were. The way she reacted didn’t necessarily bring up any unneeded fear or shame or any
other previous conversations on the subject that she had with Nicole.

By being clear and direct, Tanya was able to hold Nicole accountable for not cleaning up the
kitchen and uphold their agreement and her responsibilities in the household by responding in a
way that didn't necessarily make Tanya feel bad later.

In fact, apparently it didn't even make Nicole feel bad. She looked at her mom and realized that
she had been distracted and didn't think her brother was done eating, or dinner was over. By
being assertive, Tanya was able to communicate to Nicole in a much healthier way. Nicole was
held accountable for getting distracted and not taking care of her responsibilities. When she

46