It's 4 am and Your Baby is Wailing!

It’s 4 am and you awaken with a jolt from a dream you are thoroughly enjoying having something to do with relaxing with your spouse on a tranquil beach. You soon confirm that the sound that roused you is not that of a cigarette speed boat interrupting your sunbathing but that of your 4 year old whaling after another nightmare. Do you: a. roll of and nudge your significant other out of bed b. run into your child’s room and spend the next hour consoling your little one c. cover your ears and hope for the best or d. apply a round or two of EFT and get back to bed in under 5 minutes flat? If you are one of the lucky parents who has familiarized yourself with this simple and effect tool known as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) then the answer to how to deal with a screaming child in the middle of the night would be the same one as if your child is throwing a tantrum about the way you cut his sandwich at lunch earlier.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is a universal healing modality that is easy enough for my 8 year old to learn on his own but is powerful enough to assist people with everything from debilitating phobias to serious health conditions. By using a gentle tapping procedure that engages the same energy system as acupuncture, EFT rapidly balances the body and eases the emotions in sometimes very dramatic ways. Gary Craig founder of Emotional Freedom Techniques feels that this indispensable method of dispelling negative emotions should be available to all and has contributed to the betterment of the earth by making the method easily available on line at www.emofree.com . 10,000 people download the manual, which has been translated into 14 different languages, each month. As a mother of two and an EFT practitioner, I pull this incredible tool off my shelf to use with my children daily.

When my daughter comes home from school in tears that she has had an upset event happen, I use EFT on her. When my son starts to cry because we had to change the plans for the day and he can’t see his best friend instead, I use EFT. When a long loved pet (or a relatively newly rescued tadpole) suddenly dies and everyone is in tears, I use EFT. At the beginning of a new situation where my kids don’t feel safe or the times where we are all too exhausted to be very cooperative or happy, I use EFT. Tears dry up, smiles come back, and anger vanishes like magic.

I recommend that you download and read the entire 79 page manual available on Gary’s site but I will lay out the basic shortcut version here. A word of caution before you start: although I use this same technique on clients from everything from cancer to bedwetting I am not, nor is the founder of EFT, a doctor or therapist. You should seek the guidance of your health care provider before you begin using EFT on problems that you have been seeking medical and psychological advice on. It is also recommended that if you have a history of epilepsy or psychotic episodes that should refrain from using EFT unless you have the permission of a doctor.

Let’s use the nightmare example from above to illustrate how this works. Step one is The Setup: Try to identify the emotion by asking your child. Is it fear or something else? If your child is crying hysterically and this is a recurring theme then assume its fear; most parents intuitively know what their child is experiencing. Begin by tapping on the side of your child’s hand on the outside edge between the pinkie and the base of the hand. Either hand will do and for this set phase of the tapping you will be using

three or four fingers to tap. I tell my phone clients that they want to be tapping at a quick pace with the same firmness you would use on a push button phone whose numbers are sticky in other words not so hard that it causes discomfort but not so softly that it is barely felt. While tapping say the following affirmation statement three times, “Even though I am afraid of the hairy monster, I deeply and completely accept myself”. If your child will repeat your words ask them to but I find this isn’t necessary and that if the child is very upset they generally can’t.

Read a lot more articles on EFT from Alina Frank at Tappinginternational.com. If you would like to explore more about emotional freedom technique EFT and the meridan tapping method, then please click the link above and check out "The Tapping Solution"; the best tapping DVD out there!