Using Cognitive Behavioral Therapy in Parenting

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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.

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?! 

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 want to feel more happy, joyful and calm, look for the positives, and choose to focus on those experiences. You have the power to frame your life to tell the story you want to tell. 

Future forecasting. Looking at today and deciding that tomorrow is gonna suck. This comes from thoughts like, “If my kid keeps behaving this way ,” or “If they don’t change…” bad things are going to happen. You think they’ll be in trouble down the road, and you feel trapped and afraid. You try to use the present to predict the future. 

Mindreading. Trying to assume what other people are thinking based on their behavior. Some common assumptions we make with our kids are that they are manipulating us or that they should know better by now. 

“Should” statements. These are rules we have for ourselves. Some of them come from our default thinking, and often there is an “or else” beneath it which creates fear and anxiety. For example, “I should never yell or else I’m a bad mom.”

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Strategies in Parenting

A lot of parents have a lot of default, automatic thoughts when it comes to their kids. A lot of their thinking is distorted. It's not necessarily true or factual. When you keep blindly thinking these things, you continue to show up in ways you don't love.

Getting to this point is really about normalizing how kids act. 

What if your child is just behaving the way they’re behaving? They are trying to get some kind of desire or emotional need satisfied. Your kid’s behavior is about them, not about you.

Because you don't actually know what's going on inside of them, you can choose to think that they’re acting the way they are because they are young, because they are still learning, because it’s normal for them to make mistakes. 

Instead of labeling them as manipulative, you can assume that they’re having a hard moment or a big feeling or struggling with something. Give them the benefit of the doubt rather than assuming the worst about them. 

Reframing the way you think about yourself, your children and their behavior will help you not feel so stressed. 

Here are 3 steps to shift your thoughts:

1. Be aware of what you are thinking. Try doing a thought dump. Write out all of your thoughts about a behavior that you’re dealing with. Notice what’s there.
2. Question your thoughts. From your thought dump, choose one or two thoughts to question. Is the thought helpful or hurtful? Is the thought true? If it’s true right now, is it true forever, in every circumstance? Flip the thought around and look for evidence that the opposite could be true. 
3. Reframe the thought. Rewrite it in a way that makes you feel more positive, hopeful, calm or compassionate.

When a behavior comes up that I don’t love, I often use the thought, “This is information. This behavior is showing me a skill gap.” I assume that my children are going to overcome the obstacles that they're currently having. I look for evidence that they’re probably going to be okay, which helps me feel more calm. 

Plus, when you look at these obstacles as a gap in skills, you can help your child find tools, strategies and support to help them develop those skills. 

A couple of other tools I love to use and teach in my programs are a Positive Parenting Vision and a Delight List. These allow you to look for the good in my kid and create a positive vision of their future.

Isn’t it so cool that you can choose what you want to think? Then, what you focus on will grow. You can choose the future. Pretty powerful stuff. 

I want to leave you with a few final thoughts to take into parenting this week: Behavior is temporary. Obstacles are a learning opportunity. You have plenty of time. 

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

Resources:

• Learn about creating a Positive Parenting Vision in Episode 36: Overcoming Fear with Raising Teens
• Make a Delight List in Episode 108: When You Don’t Like Your Kid
• Free Stop Yelling Cheat Sheet