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Deepak Chopra, MD
"EFT offers great healing benefits."
EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques®) Where emotional relief brings physical health
Self help method often works where nothing else will No Drugs Involved ~ High Success Rate
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Fear of making a mistake, fear of peers laughing at him & bedtime fears due to TV programs.
Hi Gary,
I thought I would respond to your request for sharing regarding working with EFT and children.
Despite the fact that I have been a tapoholic with adults, friends and my clients I have only used EFT with my own children ages 8 and 13 years old. This feedback would never hit the research journals because I am reporting from memory with some missing pieces. There are a few interesting points to note however.
My first experience was with my 13 year old son. He attends a unique public school for the arts. Every month they have performances in which he plays the trumpet. In the past he has experienced "fear of making a mistake" and "worry around his peers laughing at him."
The night before the performance, while he was practicing his trumpet, I went into his bedroom and asked if he wanted to do the tapping thing. We ran into two difficulties. He had some difficulty tuning into the problem because he was relatively relaxed and calm. We tried talking about some of his past experiences yet he felt he could not get into it. We tried moving into the future anticipating what the next day would be like and he said he just didn't get a sense of the fear. I wanted to proceed anyway so that he could learn the sequence. He even had a hard time with the SUDs rating not knowing what he felt really. We tapped for the previous issues anyway just to go through the procedure.
He came home after school and I asked him how it went and he said "Great! And Oh I did tap before the performance mom."
The other two times I used EFT were with my 8 year old around bedtime fears. One night he came down to the kitchen twenty or so minutes after being put to bed. He asked if I would do the tapping thing because he was afraid of having a nightmare about the "Mummy" movie he had seen a couple of nights prior.
In talking with him it was the "Mummy" and the "scarabs" which were most frightening. What was so cute was that he immediately said "and on a scale from 0 to ten, 0 being not at all afraid of the mummy and 10 being really afraid I am about...an 8." My eight year old is a busy boy. He rarely stops for a conversation unless it is about money. He popped himself right up onto the kitchen counter ready to go. Full attention and with great interest.
The scarab aspect came up after reducing the mummy to 0. We brought the scarab fear down to 0, he willing went off to bed and we have not heard a thing about it since [at least a month now].
Another bedtime fear came up one night when after being in bed for awhile his play station TV screen suddenly came on. I think it would have scared the sh... out of me too! Needless to say I went up to the bedroom and he said "can you do that tapping thing again" He uttered his lines again "on a scale......".
The first issue was "fear of the TV coming on" Once down to 0, he said he was afraid of something happening like in that movie Poltergeist. I said "like spirits coming out of the TV?" So we tapped for that one too.
He seemed fine and ready to go to sleep but came up with the brilliant idea to "let's just pull out the plug on the TV to be sure." I don't know if all the fears were gone but once again we haven't heard another word about it.
The last incident was again with my 8 yr. old when he had a melt down around not being able to get the notes on his recorder. He was crying saying if he didn't get it perfect he would get a D! He also expressed that everyone else could do it and they would laugh at him. Oh the pressures at school, not unlike our own! He said that there was no way that tapping could help with this problem when I said let's tap.
This was BIG! Because he was crying so much he just laid back on the couch while I said all the words for him. Towards the end of a couple of rounds and a couple of aspects he felt more in control and began participating. We ended up having a grand old time, laughing hysterically while each of us trying to learn the first bar of "In the jungle the mighty jungle." He has been practicing this song with no worries even though it is still not sounding perfect.
I have found that my children are open, flexible and willing to try EFT. They see me tapping for everything and have managed to absorb the technique with relatively little instruction. I feel that in each situation there have been rewards, from a clearing of emotion to bonding building trust and teaching of a most wonderful skill that I know they will use for their entire life--from heartache to writing their final exams! It truly is one of the most precious gifts we can give them.
Jody Galardo
