Everyone can relate to feeling like a bad parent. We all have that negative self-talk that plagues us with guilt, anxiety, and all those other negative emotions. Sometimes negative emotions can serve a useful purpose and sometimes they can cause unnecessary stress. How can we move out of that stressful thinking and into a more calmer place? Simply by changing how we think about the events in our lives. But before we can change that, we first need to understand how we create our emotions.

Psychologists Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper, authors of “A New Guide to Rational Living“, offers some insight into how we talk ourselves into negative feelings. They use the model A, B, and C to illustrate.

A is the activating event – something you find upsetting. B is the belief about the activating event. C is the emotional consequence of your belief about the activating event. Most people think that A causes C, that the event causes the emotional response, however, it’s the belief about the event that causes our emotions. Ellis says that we can cause problems for ourselves when we have irrational beliefs about the events in our lives.

Let’s say one morning you yell at your kids trying to get out of the house for school and work on time. You might say to yourself, “How awful! I made a stupid mistake yelling at the kids. I can’t stand making mistakes. I am an awful parent! I should not make mistakes.” This kind of thinking is not only stressful but causes you to feel angry and upset, possibly discouraged. Your belief that you should not make a mistake is an irrational belief according to Ellis. He says we make ourselves upset because we think of preferences as needs: we’d strongly prefer something to happen or not happen, and therefore think it should or should not happen. According to Ellis and Harper, an irrational belief has four parts: catastrophizing, can’t-stand-it-itis, commanding and condemning.

Catastrophizing: “How awful! I made a stupid mistake.” We can turn disappointments into catastrophe’s if things don’t go the way we think they should.

Can’t-stand-it-itis: “I can’t stand making mistakes.” If we think we have a catastrophe, then it’s likely we tell ourselves that we can’t stand it.

Commanding: To believe things should or must turn out the way we want them is to make unreasonable demands on life. The root of all irrational beliefs can be found in the command. “I should not make mistakes.”

Condemning: “I’m a really bad parent.” We feel worthless when we berate ourselves into thinking we are bad parents for making mistakes.

The good news is that we can change our irrational beliefs into rational ones by adding a D and disputing the beliefs. We do this by changing our language and they way we think about the event. You can choose to say, “I made a mistake. It’s frustrating, unfortunate and inconvenient, but it’s not a catastrophe. I don’t like making mistakes, but I can stand it. I strongly prefer not to make mistakes but there’s no law that says I can’t make mistakes. People make mistakes all the time. And making one mistake doesn’t make me a bad parent. Most of the time I get along great with my kids.” You may still feel disappointed after telling yourself this, but you won’t feel as angry or stressed. You will have changed your feelings and emotions by changing your beliefs. And this is how we begin to change our mindset.

Next time you are feeling upset, search for the four C’s and record them. Identify how you feel when each of your “shoulds” are violated. Reevaluate the situation and rephrase your beliefs so that they are rational beliefs. Examine how you feel when you start concentrating on your new beliefs. You are more likely to decide to change your behaviour by choosing beliefs that are rational and realistic. We can lead happier lives with less stress when we have a realistic and rational mindset about the world we live in.

By Kylah Harrington

Credit – Don Dinkmeyer and Gary D. McKay, Systematic Training for Effective Parenting of Teens. (Second Edition. United States: AGS American Guidance Service Inc. 1990).

Credit – Albert Ellis and Robert A Harper, A New Guide to Rational Living (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1975).

Credit – Don Dinkmeyer, Gary D. McKay, Don Dinkmeyer, Jr., James S. Dinkmeyer, and Joyce L. McKay, The Effective Parent. (United States: AGS American Guidance Service Inc. 1987).