This article was first published in www.childrenofthenewearth.com in December of 2008.
I encourage all parents who strive to better understand our childrens' inner life to explore that online magazine, as well as www.worldpuja.org, "Inspired Parenting" with Sandi Sedgbeer. We no longer need to disregard our childrens' inner needs, their daily urge to become who they truly are. We now have tools that allow us as parents, teachers, grandparents and caregivers to free ourselves of old patterns in order to support our children in new and more life enhancing ways.

I offer these articles on using EFTtm (Emotional Freedom Technique) as an example of how to incorporate just one of our newer "emotional intelligence" tools into our daily lives as families.

I would deeply appreciate any feedback, interest, and/or questions regarding what I am sharing with you in these articles. I am available for both private and group EFTtm training. I can accomodate groups of up to 11 people on my webinar software, which acomodates beautifully to online EFTtm training; where you see me and I can see you as well, if you have a webcam. Call or email me for group and individual training rates.

EFTtm ARTICLE 1: EMOTIONAL FREEDOM TECHNIQUEtm: An Invaluable EI Tool

Many of you may be familiar with EFTtm, the meridian tapping technique made available to all of us, professional counselors and layfolk alike, by Gary Craig (www.emofree.com). Some of you reading this may have already succeeded, in learning EFttm yourselves. And yet, I find that very few parents grasp the simplicity and efficacy of using EFTtm as a prime parenting tool in this modern world.

For instance, did you know that:

With the help of Tappy Bear™, children as young as 4 or 5 can learn and use
EFTtm on their own?

EFT&trade is being used in public schools to smooth transit
ions during the daily schedule?

EFT™ is being implemented to relieve test anxiety and increase test scores in schools all over the country?

A "Personal Peace Process" is available to all of you to implement in your daily family life, using EFT™ to clear any negative charges you and/or your children may experience during your day?

These are just some of the compelling reasons that you as a parent may want to learn EFT™ and share it with your family.

GETTING UP AND RUNNING WITH EFT™:

Before introducing EFT™ to your children, I strongly suggest that you as parents practice using it yourselves. If your children witness you using it, so much the better. We all know there is no better way of teaching than by example, but whetting a child's natural curiosity without directly asking for their participation.

For instance, let's say it's breakfast time. You may have both a toddler and a 2nd grader, with the latter needing to get to school this morning. It is a time of day that calls for family cooperation. However, your toddler is, in her developmentally appropriate way, totally immersed in playing with rather than eating her oatmeal. You can already see that extracting her from her game will most likely produce resistance on her part. You can already feel that subtle tension rising in your energy system. If you had not recently learned to "tap", you would be calling on your standard toolbag to move you through this moment; ie: inner tension would begin to escalate, you would bring that tension to how you interact with your toddler, and the outcome would necessarily be heightened negative emotion for both of you. However, now you have this EFT&trade additional tool. Why not give it a try? You do have a few minutes to spare. What do you have to lose?

Tapping on your karate chop area, the side of either hand (please go to "tapping points" on this website and print out an EFT&trade chart), mentally or out loud say something like this: "Even though I can feel this anxiety in my chest; we're about to run late again and have another toddler meltdown, I totally and completely love and accept myself." In the language of EFT&trade, this would constitute your "setup phrase". (repeat this setup phrase 3 times).

Next, as you use two fingers to tap 5-7 times gently on each of the eight points referred to below and on your tapping charts, you maintain focus on your issue by verbalizing phrases that keep you on topic, such as:

EB: "this anxiety I'm feeling"
SE: "expecting another toddler meltdown"
UE: "there's got to be a better solution"
UN: "this anxiety over being late"
CH: "late to school"
CB: "losing patience"
UA: "here we go again"
TH: "there's got to be a better way...this anxiety..."

Now, take a deep breath. Perhaps one or both of the children have been watching you. So much the better. That's it. If you have no more time, just proceed with your schedule. If your toddler still protests going to the car, perhaps this time her behavior creates less of a reaction in you. You have tapped on your anxiety and calmed yourself. For now, that's enough. We are taking one step at a time.

I encourage you to repeat these simple tapping sessions whenever you feel "triggered" during your day, with and apart from your children. The more release you experience using EFT&trade, the greater will be your motivation to share it with your family members. And the more often they witness you tapping, the more curiosity you will engender in them. Especially if they find Mommy getting less uptight during the day, and enjoying life more. Such shifts are deeply registered by your children, even if not always in a conscious way.

Perhaps by midday you feel your nervous system being triggered by events that you are usually able to flow through. But last night you didn't get enough sleep, and you are feeling more raw than usual; know that feeling? I think every parent does! So your toddler spills some juice on the carpet midday, and you can feel yourself snapping. What a perfect moment to experiment further with EFT&trade!

SETUP: (tapping on KC area): "Even though I didn't get enough sleep last night, and the littlest upsets are really getting to me today, I fully and completely love and accept myself." (3 times)

EF: "not enough sleep"
SE: "easily upset"
UE: "so tired and jumpy"
UN: "need a long nap!"
CH: "maybe an early nap"
CB: "soooo tired, this mom"
UA: "so easily upset"
TH: "some days are just this way. no need to beat myself up"

Imagaine your toddler watching you do this. You have not asked her to participate. You have not directed any negative energy at her for spilling the juice. You have felt your own tension and you are taking care of yourself in her presence. The spill can wait. This is mom's time out. You will take a deep breath and most likely find yourself less stressed and better able to move forward with the stain and your toddler into a more friendly naptime, both for her and for you. And, she has just witnessed her Mommy attending to her own emotional imbalance and transforming it on the spot! What a lesson in Emotional Intelligence!

I don't know about you, but I grew up learning from the adults around me and absorbing a view that: "How you feel is pretty solid...you don't have much control over your emotions. The best you can do is stuff them and pretend you are ok."

When our children can witness us, their parents and grandparents, genuinely transforming negative emotion with tapping, we are teaching them a priceless lesson, that "we as humans have tools to shift our own emotional states, and when we implement these tools, we can feel better in a matter of moments!"

After a week or so of using EFT&trade on yourself, you may feel ready to introduce it to your children. Or, after observing you using it, your children may ask you for training or even begin to experiment with the process playfully.

If your children are younger than 11 years old, I strongly recommend purchasing or making a Tappy Bear&trade as part of their introduction to EFT&trade.
There are several benefits to including Tappy Bear&trade in childrens' EFT&trade training:

*The bear helps a child focus
*The bear reminds the child automatically of where the tapping points are located
*The bear can be used to take the focus away from the child and the problem at hand transferred to the bear, until the child is ready to own it. For example, "Did you know that Tappy Bear had a hard time in the playground today? Mean Bear stole his soccer ball and wouldn't give it back. How do you think that made Tappy Bear feel?"

Just before sleep is a great time to introduce tapping. Once they are cozy in bed, discuss with your child their day. If they are old enough to verbalize, ask if there is anything still bothering them from the day's events. Or, if they've had nightmares recently, tap on that, e.g.:

"Even though I've had nightmares this week, and that makes me scared to go to sleep, I'm an awesome kid..."

"Even though I had a nightmare last night, I choose to have happy dreams tonight; I choose to ask my angels to bring me only happy dreams, and I am an awesome kid!"

Use a setup similar to above, individualizing it to your child's language and imagery. Then, go through the tapping points with them, using reminder phrases:

"happy dreams"
"nightmares are scary"
"makes me afraid to go to sleep"
"choosing happy dreams"
"choosing to call on my angels. they will bring me happy dreams"

If your child would rather tap on Tappy Bear&trade instead of on herself, fine. Follow your child's lead. Trust her inner wisdom. If she wants to simplify the tapping process, and seems to be getting relief from just one or two points, trust that. Each of us, child and adult, often have an intuitive knowing of which points are essential for our system; which bring significant release for us.

Gary Craig, the founder of EFT&trade, chose these particular points because they address all seven major meridians in the body. Your child may discover that one or two of these points effect release for her, and the others are not needed.

If your child is very young or disabled in any way, you will want to learn about "Proxy or Surrogate" tapping, in which you temporarily become(in your mind's eye) the person you are tapping for. There will be an entire article dedicated to this in the near future.

For now, I hope that this article has whetted your appetite for learning EFT&trade. If so, I urge ou to continue to pursue further training.

You might start that training by going to "free videos" on this site, and watching both that are currently available. The first is of a 4th grader, Eden, who learned EFT&trade from me in a group after-school format last year. Not only did I teach my entire group of K-4th EFT&trade throughout the year. We all made tappy bears, which each child took home, along with a newsletter to share with parents why we had created these funny looking bears.

I learned at the beginning of this school year that Eden has been using EFT&trade often, thanks to her bear reminding her (he sits on her piano and she sees him
multiple times a day).

Not only does Eden use her tapping skills to calm down after fighting with her siblings, she also has found it essential in what I call "peak performance". In her case, she has discovered that if she taps a few rounds before piano practive daily,
she is much better able to memorize songs! And she figured all that out without any
adult intervention or support. Her mother has yet to use much EFT&trade.

I am always available, individually or in groups, to coach you with EFT&trade. Not only can I offer EFT&trade training seminars locally in the Denver Metro area, I have computer software that allows me to invite up to 11 at a time to an online
webinar training. And, of course, much of my work is one on one, coaching adults and children to hone their EFT&trade skills.

My dream is to spread this tool far and wide, so that every child growing up today deeply understands that we as humans have ways of mastering or at least shifting emotional states we find intolerable. If our children can learn this, then I believe we can help create a more peaceful world and prevent so much youth violence, both to themselves and to others.

Moreover, by taking the time to learn and develop your EFT&trade skills, I can promise you you will enjoy parenting so much more! I only wish I had had such a tool when my children were growing up!