Can this help children?

I know sometimes we think they are more like animals or monsters, especially when they are expressing their emotional selves, but they are in fact always human beings, and as such they can learn a lot from understanding Human Givens. Consider the following.

The developing brain

Take a scan of the brain of a baby and you will find that although the outside is correctly formed and the emotional brain (the anxiety response or fight-or-flight response) is functional, the two larger outer-hemispheres are virtually empty. The emotional brain allows the baby to protect itself (find nourishment and warmth by enabling parenting templates in the parents) in the outside world, but little else. Essentially the baby is a truly emotional being with very little rational thinking ability. They are emotional from day one, and only develop rational thought processes later as their new daily quota of neurons arrive. Understanding the nature of emotion is really important for children as soon as they have sufficient rational-thinking abilities to understand.

We are emotional beings

Parents often help their children to learn how to do things (read, write, play games etc), but sometimes they are not taught that we are ALL emotional beings and that adults sometimes do things that may be worrying or difficult to understand when they are under pressure. Also, sometimes adults hide their emotions intending to protect the children, while all the time confusing them. Children not only have to learn to understand their own emotions, but also those on display around them. Understanding emotional capacity can be a very powerful tool for any child.

Recognising emotional stress and distress

Imagine the child growing up in a broken or disturbed family environment where there is anger, alcohol, violence on a regular basis. Being aware of the effects of stress and distress with these things being openly discussed will help the child to understand and cope.

How we learn with needs and resources

This is another powerful learning for any child, that we have hidden new resources arriving every day. So even if the child is struggling with something today, if they really need to learn something and they keep trying, they will be able to, thanks to new daily neurons. This encourages the development of determination and persistence which are good skills for later life.

Pattern matching

The Human Givens Rewind process can be invaluable for children suffering from any form of traumatic experience such as watching domestic violence, abuse, school bullying etc. Not only can the child be helped immediately, but these traumatic memories are dealt with before they can cause a lifetime of behavioural changes (avoidance, socio-phobia, anxiety attacks etc).

The security guard

Knowing that we have a security guard constantly alert and protecting us from danger is reassuring to most children once they understand it. It is like having a secret protector, or invisible friend watching over us. It helps develop confidence and self awareness.

Wrong fuel

For a child, this can normalize the way they are feeling. They are emotionally distressed, but cannot connect that to the way they are behaving and this simple analogy allows them to do so. With this understanding they are re-assured and begin to calm down. They also become interested in learning what they can do to prevent being as upset again in the future, they learn how to manage stress at an early age. Consider the life long benefits from that alone.

Who’s in charge?

Understanding that we have such a powerful unconscious resource at the command of the conscious mind is liberating and empowering to children. They can be encouraged to experiment with this, all the time gaining confidence from understanding just how unlimited this power is. What a wonderful thought at a young age, that we have all that power to help us learn and develop.

Why we dream

Children quite often suffer from nightmares or even night-terrors. Adults know that these are nothing to be concerned about and that they will usually only last for a short time than disappear. However, to the child they can be extremely frightening and unsettling. Understanding the purpose of sleep and dreaming not only is interesting to most children, but also explains how dreaming resolves emotions from the previous day, and that dreams use metaphors, and sometimes these metaphors are scary because something scary has happened to them the day before. The scary event may or may not be obvious such as intimidation in the playground, or simply feeling uncomfortable and not wanting to go to school yet being unable to explain why. The explanation will calm a child down, and in conjunction with other Human Given techniques the night terrors/mares can often be quickly eliminated.

Self help

These basic tools create a confidence in that when something goes wrong, they have things they can do to recover. Often even having the understanding makes life more manageable and the tools are not required, just having them is enough to ward off problems. These are simple ideas, but very effective and really important for an anxious or fearful child to learn.