Reddit mentions of Calming the Family Storm: Anger Management for Moms, Dads, and All the Kids

What kinds of things stir up anger for you? Are you angry when you wake up? If that's the case, try progressive muscle relaxation once a day for two weeks before you even get out of bed. This trains you to chill out for a moment before seizing the day. Gives you a minute to physically relax and let your mind remember what relaxation feels like. You could also use a minute or two here to remind yourself the goal of being a kinder, gentler dad is for your wife and kids and also for you. It benefits everyone in the house.

Or are you not angry until you've had to drive somewhere? Check out the road rage tips at the end of the same doc. If driving is a problem, start leaving 20 minutes early for everything. This seemingly simple tactic has a magic way of reducing tension on the road. If you're not in a rush, you're not competing with other drivers.

For everything else, if you can find a way to get out in front of what's going on and evaluate what is happening before you get all bent out of shape, you can prevent the blowups. Kind of like defusing a bomb. The more things pile up throughout the day, the more wires start connecting and the worse the explosion can be. Another wire means a bigger bomb. You want to notice when a wire gets connected and take a minute to disconnect it. That means you have to pay attention to what is happening throughout the day.

So try to do a personal status check a couple times a day. How am I doing? Am I anxious or agitated? Just a kind of sniff test. Takes only a second. And take words like anxious, frustrated, annoyed, any words you use like that on a regular basis to describe to yourself how you are feeling and lump them into the anger category. They all can be dealt with with the same technique here. Frustration is a word some people use to try to dismiss their feelings. "Oh I'm not mad, I'm just frustrated." Nope. Don't fool yourself with that. (I did this a lot and it just made me take that much longer to admit I had a problem and delayed learning how to do something about it.)

You absolutely do not want not have several wires going at once, so if you do you want to stop and take a glance at what has recently happened, say over the last half hour or hour. What events or incidents occurred that got these wires going. This metaphor with the wires is a little overkill and using a bomb as an example probably isn't the best idea. But you see the point.

If your thoughts, feelings, emotions are becoming a plate of spaghetti every day, then you aren't getting any mental space to be in the moment and just enjoy looking out the window at the sunlight or watch your family making dinner, etc. If a normal family event is taking place, do one of these self-checks. What is occupying your mind and preventing you from participating in real time with them. You can flip through Anger Management for Dummies to look up specific topics. It has a really good index. There's also Calming the Family Storm that addresses anger between all members of the family.

Hope some of this helps! I've had anger issues a long time and this is how I tackle it after years of therapy and reading several books. I also took an online class that helped and gave me a bit of a sense of achievement. I took the full 24 hours but 8 hours would have sufficed I think. The whole second half is basically, "You know you don't want to go back to prison right?" Which, there is a need for that! But we don't need it on this post. Hang in there!