Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most effective therapeutic models to help people move through negative emotion and create long term change in the way they think, feel and behave in their lives. Today, I’m showing you how you can use the powerful concepts behind Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in parenting.
You’ll Learn:
- Why Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is such a powerful tool
- How your thoughts affect the way you show up as a parent
- How to feel less triggered by your kid’s behavior
- Some of my favorite tools and strategies for seeing your child in a more positive light
A big part of CALM (the first step in my 4-step Calm Mama Process) is calming yourself when your nervous system gets activated. But I want to take it a step further.
I want to help you learn how to not get activated in the first place. Imagine if you were able to stay in your calm state of mind and not get triggered by your kid’s behavior. How cool would that be?!
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What is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?
Cognitive (or cognition) is just a fancy word for thinking. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) teaches strategies to think differently so that you act differently.
It was created in the 1960s by a psychiatrist named Aaron Beck when he realized that there are three separate parts of cognition.
- Automatic thoughts - Default thoughts that come from how we were raised and what we’ve learned from society
- Cognitive distortions - “Thought errors” where our thoughts can be extreme or untrue
- Underlying beliefs - Core beliefs we have about ourselves and the world, which guide our point of view but may or may not be true for us
CBT invites you to examine your thinking so that your beliefs help you show up the way you want to. The coaching model that I use is based in cognitive behavior therapy. The idea is that something happens (a circumstance) >> I have a thought about what happened >> That thought creates a feeling >> I act on that feeling.
Basically, your thoughts and feelings create how you show up for your kid (and the rest of your life). I don’t know about you, but I want to show up as a parent that feels confident and hopeful for my children. I want them to be able to borrow my belief in them when they’re struggling to believe in themselves.
This is possible for all of us, but there are some patterns that might get in your way.
Common Thought Errors in Parenting
There are several common ways we can get caught up in thought errors or cognitive distortions.
Negative thought bias. A viewpoint that the world is not so great. My kid’s behavior isn’t good. That’s just the way it is. You expect that things will go wrong.
Whether you have a positive or negative outlook, no matter what thoughts you are thinking, your brain will find evidence to prove you right. Some people naturally have a more negative outlook, while others will have an easier time thinking more positively. Either way, you can train your brain to look for the good more often.
Black-and-white thinking. Viewing a behavior or your kid as good OR bad. Watch for all-or-nothing or extreme kinds of thoughts. Try to notice what is actually happening right now without projecting it into the past or future.
Focusing on the negative more than the positive. Let’s say you went on a family vacation that was mostly good, but there were a few negative experiences. When a friend asks you how your trip was, will you say it was mostly good or that it was a disaster?
If you...
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