Following is an article which introduce the use of NLP to help children to learn, get along with others and working toward positive states.
NLP Tips For Parents
NLP provides parents with a great toolkit for helping their children learn, get along with others, and opt in to positive states. Using exactly the same techniques and principles they would apply to working with adults, parents get great results. As a bonus, they also get a chance to share the positive states their children experience. It’s a win-win!
All NLP techniques are grounded in the fact that human beings experience life as a series of continuous, unified states. Our minds, bodies, emotions, beliefs, knowledge and memories are all present and active simultaneously. Our neurology links every part of us that is active at a particular moment so that we create life as a flow and not as a discontinuous assortment of data.
Parents are often amazed at the ease with which children move from one state to another. A three year old who is howling one moment can be giggling the next. A teenager with nothing to say to her parents can be overflowing with words when her cell phone rings. Children are experts at changing states.
As parents, our first job is to notice the state that our children are in and to notice the benefits of this state. It often seems that the easier it is to notice the state, the harder it is to find benefits in it. Yet recognizing that even very small children have good reasons for bad behaviour is an enormous jump on changing that behaviour with relatively little stress.
In order to really appreciate the state your child is in, you need to observe the way your child observes: using all your senses and quite a bit of your physiology. You need to become a mirror of your child’s expressions, movements and postures. As you take on his/her physical characteristics, you will learn something of his/her internal experience.
Try it. Join your child in an activity and instead of teaching him/her how you do it, learn how s/he does it. Pay attention to every aspect of his/her movement, gestures, shifting attention and expression. See how precisely you can replicate them. Notice what changes in your feelings and perceptions as you take on the characteristics of your child’s state. Ask yourself: “what are the benefits of this state?”
When you identify a state as positive for the child (and possibly for you, too!), then you anchor that state. Anchoring means associating a state with a physical stimulus. If your child is engaged in a physical activity, elements of that activity will already be anchored to that state. If you want to transfer the state to other contexts, try anchoring the state to a particular word, touch or facial expression. Practice reinforcing the anchor whenever you notice that state as your child engages in the same or different activities.
What if your child enters a state that you don’t believe is positive? Your first goal is to replicate aspects of the state in yourself so that you can notice its benefits. This means watching a tantrum and noticing how powerful you feel as you scrunch your face, shake your head or bang your fist repeatedly. Or it might mean noticing how interesting it is to move your attention very rapidly from one thing to another – noticing how it changes your relationship to what is around you. It’s always valuable to accept that states have benefits for the people engaged in them – even when they don’t seem beneficial.
The goal of the exercise is not usually to leave the state unchanged, but to find a way to change it that preserves some elements of its benefits. Once you have a great read on your child’s state, you can change it by interrupting it, by firing resource anchors, or by helping your child move into a more positive physiology.
Last, but certainly not least, you can share stories with your child to establish a connection with his/her state and then transform it. Telling stories together invites you to share your voice, rhythms and expressions with your child – whether you are doing the telling or the listening. The point of the story is not to get the story right – it’s to get the best transformation into a shared, positive state. Stories are a natural technique for observing, engaging, connecting and transforming. Your kids will benefit – and so will you.
Linda Ferguson, Ph.D. is a senior partner at NLP Canada Training Inc. in Toronto, Canada. With her partner, Chris Keeler, Linda develops training that allows people to experience stronger integrity and better results. Clients experience rapid, sustainable change and long-term learning about how their thinking drives success. Drawing on fields from the arts to business to neuroscience, NLP Canada Training Inc. provides spring-training for the mind: clients sharpen their perceptions, focus their efforts, and become better at knowing what they want and communicating to get it. Read more from Linda at http://www.nlpcanada.com or http://www.squidoo.com/integratedthinking or http://www.nlpcanadatraining.blogspot.com
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