I have been a certified consulting hypnotist for five years now and I am absolutely open to working with children. My youngest successful client was 8 years of age; she came in with a fear of sleeping alone and with the help of her superconscious mind and a dragon stuffie that she named “Draggie” because, of course she did, she is 8. I was able to help her.
When a child is brought for a true habit, belief, identity, or addiction, hypnosis is usually a success and often with fewer sessions required than their adult counterparts. There are a couple of unique things about working with children. I need to adapt the examples and words to something that makes sense to them. For instance, instead of calling it the super conscious mind, I explain that it is like their very own, personal super hero who is always with them. I let them name it and ask Super Conscious if they will respond to that name which is always met with a yes response.
Children do not sit the way adults do; some do not close their eyes and many do not sit still. They wiggle and jiggle around but the job still gets done. This does not present an issue for me, unless the child is young and the parent needs to stay in the room; then I have to direct the parent to face away, look at their muted phone or read a book. Their child will not be properly hypnotized while the parent is staring at them, nor will they answer the pre hypnosis questions honestly with mom or dad in the room.
Well then Patricia, why is the title of this article insinuating that you cannot fix my child? Well, Janet
, that is because your child is not broken. Many times, people bring teenagers to come to see me and the concern is behavioral in nature. This is where I cannot generally help. Often times, the child is acting out for any number of reasons from parental disharmony in the home, to parents simply not paying any attention to their child. In all of these cases, I can give coaching to the child, validate their concerns and provide different methods to approach their parents to speak their needs out loud. In every case, having the parent in for coaching and hypnosis with a little communication training mixed in brings much better results.
I am not saying that the parents are broken or in any way terrible, what I do notice is that everyone is too busy “doing” to slow down and simply “be”. Teens will do an incredibly inventive number of things to get the attention that they seek from their mom and dad; none of them are desirable actions.
When I have the opportunity to speak to the parents and make some suggestions about interacting with their teens differently, the results are phenomenal. We live in demanding times where some adults are expected to be at the beck and call of their jobs far beyond the nine-to-five day, leaving their child competing with the screen for attention. Please do not get me wrong, I worked some of those jobs and I do understand that there can indeed be a need for that in some organizations; it is just that your child doesn’t get it and they need your focus too some days.
I recommend a screen free meal time. Play a dinner time game where everyone takes a turn answering a question such as:
What is the best thing about your day today?
What I like about you… where each person is the focus about what everyone else at the table appreciates about them.
What did you learn today? All of us are learning, some of what we are learning may be boring to others; how will you know until you share?
Take some time to be with your kid. You had them, spend a half hour a day just listening to them, fully present; if daily is not possible, have a date night with them once a week. Do something that works for both of you and stick to it more often than you break the date.
I know there are times that it can seem overwhelming to be a parent; I personally have three boys and a daughter who passed away at age five. Life is busy, but time is short and sometimes way shorter than you ever expected. Parenting little ones and then teens is not a bed of roses, however as my uncle once told me:
“It ain’t hell, it won’t last forever and when they are thirty, they are really handy to have around.”
My boys are all at or approaching thirty now and my uncle was right, they are handy to have around. You know what else? They talk to me when they have troubles and they share their victories with me because we learned to talk when they were little.
In order to have those conversations and to have quality time, it is useful to understand what love language you and your family members speak. There is a free quiz here. With boys, I also found that getting them to talk could be a challenge, however, if you go and do something with them where you are not looking them in the eyes, they will open up. Go for a drive, a walk, something where you are side by side without eye contact. They seem to find that easier, at least in my experience.
Now, if your teen has an addiction, habit, belief about themselves or some other issue that is interfering with their enjoyment in life, by all means, book them in! I would love to help them find a clearer path to enjoyment of life.
I hope this is helpful! Tell me, what other games do you play with your family to connect? How do you find time and stay close in these busy times we live in?
P.S. I have no affiliation with The Five Love Languages or Gary Chapman, I simply believe this work is wonderful and helpful in any type of relationship therefore I recommend it often.