Page 69 - How Changing Your Anger Can Help You Be a Better Parent book

Putting it all Together

The most challenging part of the day for Malia and her 10-year-old son, Jules, is usually in the
morning.

Jules would get out of bed, turn on the TV, and wouldn’t eat breakfast when Malia prepared it for
him. He was even late for school several times.

There were many times that Malia would lose her patience with Jules and would end up in a
screaming match with him. When she screamed at Jules, it made her feel out of control and many
times she felt guilty and ashamed later. As Jules got older, he seemed to resent his mom and his
anger also spun out of control.

These angry episodes would emotionally affect Malia for the entire day. Most days, even though
she was able to get Jules to school on time, she would feel agitated and irritable all day trying to
reconcile her feelings from yelling at Jules and making promises to herself that it wouldn’t happen
again in the future.

Malia came up with a plan to change her anger. She wanted to change the way she was thinking,
the way she was feeling, and the way she was responding during these on-going, sometimes
daily, angry situations.

By changing her anger, Malia was able to get Jules to change his behavior.

Using her parenting anger log, Malia recorded the different situations of the angry mornings she
was experiencing with Jules. She would write down the angry situation, her automatic thoughts at
the time, her degree of anger, her angry behavior, and the outcome of the angry exchange on
herself and Jules.

Malia’s angry situation: Jules gets up late, won’t eat or dress on time, is late for school, and throws
tantrums if pressured.

Malia addressed her automatic trigger thoughts: She was assuming the intent of Jules’ behavior.
She also realized she was labeling Jules as being lazy, mean and oppositional.
She originally assessed her degree of anger as an eight or nine on her anger scale (for her,
anytime she yells it’s at least an eight).

Her angry behavior: yelling and sometimes she offers empty threats. The only time she has been
somewhat physical with Jules was when she grabbed something out of his hands when she was
angry.
Her recorded outcomes for both herself and for Jules after these angry exchanges are usually
deep into the negative numbers.

So, it was time for a change.

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