by Nikki Cassar
Hello everyone, and welcome to my new column, designed to help and support you when you work with children of all ages.
Let me tell you a little about myself, and how I came to work with kids. After doing my basic and advanced training in London, I was eager for more knowledge and more tools to add to my toolbox, and so, like most of us, I have continued doing training courses wherever and whenever I can. About 3 years ago, I was offered the chance of joining a Pediatric Hypnosis course hosted by Shaun Brookhouse, and facilitated by the truly wonderful Maurice Kershaw. I found myself intrigued by the idea of working with children, and started including them in my advertising. Since that time, although the main core of my work continues to be with adults, I have found my junior clientele gradually increasing, and I now see 3-4 per week, with ages ranging from 5 to 16.
I do not pretend to be a specialist in this field, and I am quite sure there are others out there who have greater expertise. I know that for a fact, because I borrow and learn from them all the time, and many of the tips and techniques I am going to be sharing with you in coming months will have been gleaned from these dedicated people. Whenever and wherever possible, I will of course be mentioning their names. The purpose of these articles is to encourage you to work with these incredible little humans that we call children.
As someone who is very proud to be one of Cal Banyan’s 1%-ers, as a 5-PATH® and 7th Path Self-Hypnosis® Graduate, I completely empathize with his belief that our clients are sent to teach us. I am constantly amazed by how much I learn from the children I work with – they are the best teachers of all. The pleasure you will get from working with children is indescribable, and the knowledge you will accumulate will be priceless.
Now might be a good time to tell you that you will never make your fortune from working with children! Not unless you are going to stick your neck out and insist on charging the same fee as you do with adults, that is. For my part, I charge what you would call Top Dollar for my adult sessions (generally 90 minutes duration), and I am fortunate in that I have a pretty steady stream of clients wanting my services. When it comes to kids, I charge a concessionary rate, partly because the sessions are generally shorter (seldom more than one hour unless they are teenagers), and also because it is my way of ‘paying forward’. If I can help just a very few children to become happier, more balanced and emotionally healthier adults, then I feel I am in some very small way contributing to making the world a better place.
On the more practical side, working with children can also expand your practice. There will be many times when you will recognize that the only way to help the junior client is to also work with one or both of their parents, and you will be surprised how, after some initial resistance, they will readily agree to this. Parents will also recommend you to other parents, leading to a steady stream of sad, fearful, frustrated and angry miniature people walking through your door. Teachers will comment on the improved behavior and attitude of their students, prompting the parents to explain how this came about, and you can then ask for permission to contact the school, with the request that they pass on your details to the to the parents of some of their more troubled or disruptive students.
The format of this column will be very straightforward and simple. Every article will deal with a specific age range, starting from toddlers, and finishing with mid-teens. I want to actively encourage you to email me by going to the Contact Us page. Send me your questions thoughts or suggestions, and I promise to share these ‘online’, so this can become a forum of shared ideas and techniques. I know that there are many highly-trained and experienced hypnotists out there who are intrigued and interested by the idea of working with the younger population, but lack the confidence to start, and perhaps feel they don’t have the necessary skills. Let me tell you right now that you already have those skills, you just need to use them in a different way! Are you willing to roll around on the floor? To use glove puppets and silly voices? To create dreams, secret places, fantasies? To act out being a magical person, or a fairy godmother or a wizard? To just be there, to listen, really listen to what they have to say? If the answer to these questions is Yes! then you can be sure that you really do have what it takes to work with these little guys.
Finally, I’d like to suggest some simple guidelines for working with children. I use the word ‘guidelines’ because every child is different, and you will need to use your own judgement to decide the mental age of the child you have been asked to work with:
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Prior to age 5, it is unwise to attempt hypnosis, as it is unlikely that the child will have either the attention span or sufficiently-developed cognitive ability to benefit from the process. However, you can teach the parents a number of excellent techniques, using ‘waking suggestion’ to improve the toddler’s behaviour.
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Between the age of 5-9, do only short sessions, maximum of one hour, spending the majority of the first session building up trust with your little client, then doing some ‘magic’ and a very short hypnosis session. Thereafter, break the sessions down into a combination of fun and games/short hypnosis/more fun and games/short hypnosis. Probably no more than three mini-blocks of hypnosis in any one session.
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From around age 10, assuming the child is mentally mature, you can start doing a simplified form of adult hypnosis – 5-PATH® works beautifully with adolescents and teenagers. Simplify the language where necessary, and if doing anger and forgiveness work, then be a little more gentle with the offender than you would normally be.
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Always, always, always talk to the child or teenager on the phone before you meet them! This is vital. Check to make sure they are happy about the idea of seeing you… reassure them that it is going to be fun and they are going to LOVE hypnosis… give them the suggestion that they can very quickly resolve their problem. You only need to chat to them for about five minutes, but a lot of rapport and expectation can be created within that time.
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With younger children, ask the parents to casually mention you in several conversations between themselves (knowing that the child is listening nearby) in a very positive way. What the parents apparently believe, the child will ‘borrow’ and readily absorb!
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Never, never, never allow a parent to remain in the room during the session. You will not get the same quality of information, and the parent will find it very hard to keep quiet. With younger children, invite them both into your room for a cozy chat. For the first few minutes, you can focus on the parent and talk to them in a friendly and jolly way, knowing that you are being closely observed! Then switch your attention to the child and start to build rapport, and as soon as you sense that the child is comfortable with you, ask him or her if it will be OK for the parent to wait outside so the two of you can do some ‘very important’ work together and sort out their problem.
For female hypnotists, this is unlikely to pose a problem. However, I do recognize that male hypnotists may be concerned about working alone with children, so you might want to consider doing a video recording of all sessions with children.
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Whatever the age of your child client, reassure them that anything they tell you is just between you and them. Respect this totally with teenagers, only passing on limited information to the parents with their permission, on the understanding that it might be helpful for their future happiness and improved relationships. With younger kids, I ask them at the end of the session ‘Would it be OK with you if we share just a little bit of our secret with Mum/Dad (whoever is waiting outside) so we can help them understand why you’ve been having this problem? I will only do this is you give me your permission.’ They almost always say yes!
I’m very much looking forward to sharing some more of my experiences with you, and to receiving your comments, tips and suggestions. I don’t know about elsewhere, but here in the UK, it seems there are (sadly) relatively few hypnotists who are comfortable about the idea of working with children, although they will confidently accept adult clients with far greater emotional issues. Working together, we can build up the confidence of those who are teetering on the edge of going down this path, and hopefully have a lot of fun in the process!
See you again soon!
