Emotional Freedom Technique for Children with Anxiety

Particularly at the moment, with the Pandemic and  home-schooling, let alone climate change fears and all the other nuances of anxiety facing a child or young person, I'm finding I'm working more and more with young people and getting fantastic results. Stress and anxiety used to be more in the adult realm, but sadly this has become commonplace for children and young people in today's society, and it can quickly spiral and escalate.

EFT Tapping is fun, and quick to learn and has been proven to reduce anxiety by 41% in less than ten minutes! 

I started my career working with children, using the arts as a tool for transformation and empowerment, and spent ten years working around the world with"at risk" young people. I had the great privilege of spending time in Bosnia doing reconciliation work with children after the war there at the end of the 1990's, I've worked in Nepal, the UK and New Zealand, with young people labeled as "troubled" "disaffected" "difficult" "challenging"  "Vulnerable" I've worked in prisons, with young offenders, on rural housing estates, in inner-city tower-blocks, and everything in-between; with children and young people who were struggling in ways society felt unable or difficult to support. and I WISH that I had had this tool then to offer them! Because where ever I was in the world, and whatever the "difficulty" those young people were experiencing, the resilience and ability of young people to transform and pivot rapidly, given the right support was extraordinary, and equally consistent, regardless of circumstance, culture or social structures. 

I now find myself working with children and young people using EFT. Their engagement and ability to pick it up, transform and run with it is extraordinary and so delightful to witness! They've yet to develop the layers of cynicism and carefully constructed defences we as adults have, and so the effectiveness and speed at which they can transform how they are feeling and reacting is so often such a surprise for me, who's been working with adults for so long! 

​Fear and anxiety which can develop out of a feeling of loss of control, can be quickly released by giving children access to this tool, which immediately gives them control in how they respond to a situation, freeing them of those overwhelming reactions of anxiety and stress. 

Anxiety is a physiological fear based response to something we perceive out of our control, which we imagine may happen in the future. How and what we think about that thing, can trigger the fear based response (and by that I mean the physiological flight or flight response (See my earlier blog post to understand more about that) So its worth a little detective work to find out what your child's thoughts are that are triggering the stress and anxiety reaction. If they are feeling anxious about going back to school - try exploring with them what exactly it is that they think about it - in relation to themselves, which is triggering the fear reaction in them. With a bit of rooting around it can often come down to something like "I'm scared my friends won't like and include me any more" or "I haven't done my work and I'll be in trouble" or " I don't know if I'll like my new teacher"
(If you can, get them Tapping on the finger tip-points or on the head points whilst having this chat!)

The next key thing to work out with them, is; what are they making that mean about themselves? and to get a real shift this is where the gold is!  (and I encourage you to throw in your educated guesses here with them as they probably wont have a clue what you're on about!) common themes that arise are:
I am unlovable (no one will like/love me)
I don't deserve it
I'm not good enough
It's not safe for me (I'll be hurt / humiliated /abandoned)
If you can identify a core (usually negative belief) like this underlying the thought/anxiety and tap on that - this will make the biggest difference.

But there are many different ways to introduce tapping to your child, and I would encourage you to do so as part of your daily routine, when they are not in a pickle / drama (when you really DO need it!) but as part of the wind down at bed time, or when they get home from school, or in from playing with friends - times of transition. encourage them to tap on the points, without even worrying about what to say, just to become part of their own toolkit. Do it with them and let them see you using it on yourself too, so it becomes a normalised part of your day!  (and then you can draw on it when it's really needed without having to try and teach them something when they are in a state of panic or upset.

If you'd like to learn more about EFT and how it can help your child's anxiety, you can join my facebook group here "help your anxious child with EFT" where I'll be sharing top tips, and offering short videos and workshops. 

​I'm also offering an Introductory family package, of 3 sessions;
The first is with the "grown-ups" to learn how to use tapping for themselves, and chat through what issues your child is struggling with.
The second is with the adults and the kids together, for the children to explore tapping with me and their parent/guardian, go away and give it a go. 
The 3rd session, is to review, see how you've all got on, refine and maybe go deeper. I've found that in just three sessions when we are working together as a team, with both the adults and the kids, we can really get some great shifts and benefits very quickly. 

You can give me a call to discuss or click here to book 

                                                                  Here's a short video about EFT being used in schools.