EFT for Tantrums and Terrors

Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) is a great tool to help anyone deal with the negative emotions and events of our everyday lives. It is highly effective in addressing stress, anxiety, phobias, fear, trauma, anger, illness, pain and sadness. It is as useful in helping a child get over the pain of being called a nasty name, as it is in helping an adult gain emotional freedom from a long standing trauma.

So what is EFT?

Emotional Freedom Technique is a new therapy for the 21st century as it is a very safe way to get rid of anxiety, stress, and feelings of guilt and overwhelm that lots of parents suffer from. It is based on tapping different Chinese meridian lines with your fingers – and you’ve probably heard lots of people talking about tapping their problems away.

You may have seen Paul McKenna on British television demonstrating how tapping various points on your body can alleviate stress, anger and phobias. He has also shown how it can treat weight loss, smoking and other addictions and I first became impressed with it through regularly assisting Paul on his Easy Weight Loss Seminars. Whoopi Goldberg also used it to eliminate her fear of flying.

Tens of thousands of people worldwide have already used tapping to conquer their anger, increase their energy or let go of negative feelings. It has also been used to great effect in treating trauma victims in Kosovo, Iraq and Uganda and after natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina.

As an EFT Parenting Specialist, I use it with parents and children as another tool in my coaching toolkit as it is a completely safe way of eliminating stressful or anxious feelings with no side effects. I teach parents how to tap out toddler tantrums and night terrors, older children’s nightmares, exam nerves, negative self talk including teenage embarrassment, self consciousness and shyness, as well as tapping out my own daughter’s anxiety over starting her new secondary school so she could move forward much happier during the first few weeks. I also show parents how to tap out their own feelings of frustration with their teenagers to ‘working mum guilt’, or stress due to divorce.

I use it to help parents of children with Dyslexia, ADHD, Dyspraxia or children with a mental block in one area of school work like Maths or IT, as it can help get positive energy flowing in the right direction and can make a difference in performance and attitude. It’s a great tool for developing self confidence and peak performance too.

There is substantial scientific evidence that these simple tapping methods can provide impressive relief. I have personally observed this repeatedly and have seen many stunning results.

More benefits…

You can make enormous strides by introducing EFT into your emotional life and instead of taking months or years using conventional “talk therapy,” EFT often does the job for you cleanly and thoroughly in one or two sessions and we sometimes achieve noticeable results in a few brief rounds of EFT. I label these near-instant results as “one minute wonders”

Once you have seen how well EFT clears out emotional debris, your next step is to notice how physical ailments start to fade. Headaches, back pains and other discomforts often tend to improve or vanish as emotional issues improve. Your vision may become clearer and everyday stress may take fewer tolls on your system too.

The wonderful thing about EFT is that it is perfectly safe and you can apply it to just about everything. That is one of the most astonishing things about it. You use the same basic procedure for your fear of public speaking as you do for improving your golf score. You can also use it for everything from the common cold to severe back pain.

In fact, EFT has had reported successes for nearly every emotional issue – including fear, trauma, depression, and grief.

I have found it to be truly remarkable with children who are not so self conscious and I have tapped out fear of spiders, dogs and exams as well as anger, fear and grief. I have seen children receive great relief from anxiety due to their parents divorcing, starting a new school or going to nursery for the first time. It is also very effective for toddler tantrums and for parents of teenage children with untidy bedrooms!

The possibilities are endless.

Possible EFT limitations

EFT is not perfect but it usually works well up to 85% of the time and the results are sometimes spectacular. Because of its unique approach, it can work where nothing else does and, to many, it represents a new doorway to healing and feeling better.

The technique consists of tapping gently on acupressure points while “tuning in” to a feeling or emotion while saying phrases that affirm how you actually feel compared with how you want to feel. The effect is an immediate sense of relief as the “charge” from the negative emotion is released. I believe it is one of the simplest and most powerful tools a parent can use on themselves or give a child, which is why I am passionate about EFT and sharing it with you.

Memorise the Basic Recipe

Use it for any negative emotion from anger, stress, fear, or food cravings to a physical pain from earache to asthma. Use a Set Up Sentence and be very specific aiming the tapping at the specific emotion or feeling you want to reduce. Be persistent until all aspects of the problem have vanished. Be curious and playful and try it on everything!

Step 1: Use the finger tips of one hand to tap the fleshy part on the side of the other hand. This is called the Karate-Chop point.

Then say a set – up sentence 3 times:

“Even though I feel…………

sad, frustrated, angry, stressed, overwhelmed, fed up, anxious, tired, ill……..

………I deeply and completely love and accept myself because I am a really great person”

Step 2: Tap on the points starting at the top of your head and working your way down through your body about 5-7 times each, to the point under the arm and finishing off at your karate chop point again.

If you haven’t found complete relief do the sequence again until you do.

ADULTS

EFT is an amazingly simple but highly effective tool in your parenting toolkit if you are open–minded, curious and playful in your approach to using it. This is just a taster about how EFT works, what it can do and what it can be used for…… just TRY IT ON EVERYTHING

Sue Atkins is a Parenting Expert who offers practical guidance for bringing up happy, confident, well behaved kids. She is also the author of “Raising Happy Children for Dummies”, one in the black and yellow series published worldwide and she regularly appears on BBC Breakfast and The Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2.

To receive her free ebooks bursting with practical tips and helpful advice from toddler to teen log onto http://www.positive-parents.com and download them today.

Any queries or questions, e-mail Sue at sue@positive-parents.com