Working With Children & Teens Hypnotherapy

There’s nothing better than working with children – it’s immensely rewarding.

Rapid Transformational Therapy™ (RTT™) and hypnotherapy for children is extraordinary, as it is all about empowering the child, giving them unshakable belief in themselves and then seeing the transformation take place. It’s a wonderful thing for parents, teachers or any therapist to learn, as it can make such a difference to a child’s life.

This article will give you some insights into how we use RTT™ and hypnotherapy for children, with some real-life examples and amazing case studies. Because children have such a vivid imagination and are so receptive to change, working with them during this critical period of development is extremely effective and rewarding.

RTT® and hypnotherapy for children can be more effective than traditional approaches.

When I initially trained, I wanted to be a child psychologist, but I found that when you’re a child psychologist, you tend to have three patients: mother, father, child. The parents can often be struggling with their own issues and on a different page, so it was quite hard to get to the child, because you’ve got to go through the parent. That is why when I do RTT and hypnotherapy for children, I just work with the child. I have found it to be incredibly empowering and transformative.

When you are a child and your needs are not met…

Nearly all my adult clients come in with unmet needs from childhood, which are often at the root cause of all their problems. This is what makes working with children and using RTT and hypnotherapy for children and teens so powerful.

When you are a child, you have very simple needs: “I need you to love me, I need you to protect me, I need to feel safe, I need you to feed me, I need you to make me feel good about myself.”

Most of the need is to feel safe and loved and valid. If those needs aren’t met, if I go through life thinking no one loves me, I’m not safe, I’m not smart, the world is dangerous, I’m going to become a very needy adult, always needing praise and reassurance.

When children have unmet needs, they turn into adults who have unmet needs.

If you can meet the needs of a child and allow them to feel safe, valid, significant, lovable, and worthy, you actually eliminate all the adults needing therapy. You make the world a better place. In fact, as an adult, you can meet most of your own needs but we tend to hold onto past hurts and believe them to be universally true, without question.

Children who are happy don’t bully, children who are happy don’t act out, children who are happy aren’t mean. They don’t grow up into teenagers and make other kids have sex with them or shoplift or take drugs. It’s really important to get to these children at a young age and to meet their needs.

I’m going to tell you a great story about this…

In came this teenage boy who was the angriest kid I have ever met in my entire life. He said, “If you get this wrong, I’m going to sue you and take your house off you.” I looked at him and said, “You are a really hurt kid, aren’t you?” Because behind anger is hurt. So instead of getting offended, I just said, “Let’s talk about how you are hurt.”

He told me the story of his life… His parents divorced when he was very young, probably three months old. He went to live with his very elderly grandparents, didn’t see his mom, didn’t see his dad. They both went off around the world, got married to someone else, had more kids, and never saw him.

After he told me about his dad, I said, “You know what? That’s really not fair, and if I could, I would love to rewind your past and give you a loving father. I can’t do that, but I can do something that’s almost as good. Not quite as good, of course, but almost as good. If you had a lovely dad, what would he say? If you had the best dad in the world, what would he say to you?”

Everyone knows what a good dad would say, They would say “I love you, I’m proud of you. I’m so lucky that you’re my kid. It’s such an honour and a joy to be your parent. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. You’re smart, you’re funny, you’re kind, you’re interesting.”

I said, “I want you to say that to yourself. I know it sounds silly, but if you did have a great dad, what would he say?” So he began to say “I’m proud of you, you’re a great son, you’re an amazing kid, I’m so glad you’re my son.” I noticed straight away that he went from this sullen, angry, scowling boy to suddenly sitting up and smiling, his whole features softened.

The truth is, when you say things like “You’re amazing, you’re fantastic, you’re lovable,” your mind doesn’t go “Who’s saying that? Where’s that coming from?” Your mind just lets it in.

Your mind believes what you tell it

When I work with children, I fill them up with self-belief. I always empower them. They often come in with issues like nail biting, bedwetting, fear of school, fear of monsters, thumb sucking, not being able to form words, being jealous of their brother or sister. I work with school children who are still having accidents in their pants.

With little kids, I use puppets to hypnotise them. I take them back and they watch Cinderella or Frozen or something they love, and they’re in it. Little children need a 20-minute session. For bedwetting, I just have the puppet do magic, so when their tummy is full of wee, it sends a magic signal and they wake up and go to the bathroom.

If they believe it to be true, it becomes true.

For children who are bullied and children who are the bully, it is extraordinary to do this work. For older kids, for angry teenagers, for those who feel unattractive and even suicidal teens, for those getting bullied on social media, RTT works incredibly well – quickly and effectively. I really see the benefits everyday from hypnotherapy for children and teens.

When I was growing up, I learned something that I’ve never forgotten. You need one person to believe in you, just one. For me, I was very lucky, I had a grandmother who believed in me. She was my saving grace, because no matter what went on in my life, she believed in me. For many people, it’s their therapist. For the angry kid, or the troubled teen, I believe in them and it makes all the difference.

Who do you believe in…?

Have you seen the movie, Dead Poets Society, where they had one teacher, one person who believed in them, or Good Will Hunting, where it was the therapist? If you’re thinking of being a therapist, you could be the one person that turns around a troubled kid, who works with a child to overcome their fears, phobias, eczema or dermatitis. You could transform a whole family, a school and even a community. You can help shape future generations.

Many of my RTT graduates who are now working with young people say it is the most rewarding thing in the entire world. We have a lot of grads saying, “Wow, this is amazing. Working with children is incredible.” You don’t need any background, as we teach you everything you need to know. You just need to have an interest. We have many ex-teachers on our course. We have doctors who I’ve trained that say: “It’s so interesting. People come in front of you and talk about their problems. They all go back to the unmet needs of children.”

Tagging a belief

Before the age of four, children don’t have logic, they just have feelings. Something happens and they feel it, then something else happens and they do what I call tagging, where the child tags themself with a belief: “It will always be like this. It will be like this forever. It will be like this for the rest of my life.”

For example: “We don’t have any money, it will always be this way. I don’t have love. It will be this way forever and ever. I get bullied and there’s nothing I can do about it.” Children put on a tag, “It will always be this way. I can’t do anything about it” because, after all, a small child can often feel powerless to do anything about it. In RTT, using hypnotherapy for children and teens, we remove the tag, we show them the power they have, we believe in them and empower them.

What did you believe?

You can take a minute right now and think, “What tag did I put on myself?”

Many of my clients say things like: “I’m the stupid, ugly kid. I’m the fat kid. I’m not bright. I’m the kid who’s embarrassed because we’re poor, or indeed rich. I’m different. I’m the new kid. I’m the odd one out – the kid who doesn’t belong.” Children feel the need to be the same as others. We were born in tribes and we have a deep need to belong and feel connected, it was important to our survival as a species.

What’s the role, function and purpose?

In RTT, we look for the role, function and purpose of an illness. With very small children, say five, they come in with eczema or asthma or dermatitis and I say to them, “Darling, this is going to be a very silly, funny question. I want to ask you something. If the eczema is your friend, if it wanted to help you, how could it help you?”

They share things like: “Well, every night I have to stand like that with my arms out, and mommy has to put on cream and wet bandages. When she’s putting on all the cream and rubbing it in and putting the bandages on, she’s not putting any cream on that other baby.”

Of course, I understand that little kid at five watched mommy massaging oil on a new baby. He said, “Mommy, can I have that?” and she probably said “No, the baby needs it, you don’t need it. I’m busy with the baby. You had your turn when you were a baby, now it’s the baby’s turn.” That child thinks “I want Mommy to put cream on me.”

When you ask for something, the mind’s job is to deliver it.

Another little kid suffered chronic headaches. It is very unusual for a child to get headaches like that. I asked him the same question, if the headache was your friend…

He said, “When I get headaches, Mommy and Daddy stop fighting. We lie on the couch and they stroke my head until the headache goes away.” Now, you don’t have to be Einstein to work out what that child was thinking: “I want them to stop fighting, I need them to stop fighting. I’ve got to find a way for them to stop fighting.” Then suddenly, when he has headaches, his daddy and mommy don’t fight.

You can do this.

It’s such a wonderful thing to uncover the beliefs we pick up as children and to be able to do something about it. You can have this amazing job where children come in and you can help them meet their unmet needs, so they don’t carry into adulthood. Adults come in and you can show them, “Look, you’re still acting as if these needs will never be met, but you are what you’re looking for. The love you need, it’s yours. The praise you need – you can give it to yourself.”

We kind of watch miracles take place all the time with RTT and hypnotherapy for children and teens, it is like watching neuroplasticity at work. You can take old outdated negative beliefs and rewire them with new empowering beliefs that can transform lives. It is the most incredible, rewarding work in the world, which is why I want to share it with as many people as possible. You can do what I do, and you can get similar results. You can learn how to improve lives—the lives of children, your family’s lives, and your own life. When you are able to help people in such a profound, life-changing way, you can enjoy a rewarding and fulfilling career full of meaning and purpose every day.

When you know how to help a child overcome their challenges, when you meet their needs to feel safe, valid, significant, lovable, and worthy, you are not just changing one life – you are making the world a better place, one person at a time.

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AUTHOR: MARISA PEER

Marisa shares her 30 years of experience as a multi-award-winning therapist to celebrities, top athletes, and even royalty. She is the founder and creator of RTT®, the cutting-edge method and hybrid solution-based approach that can deliver extraordinary transformations.

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