Kids and phobias

[Grover]

Hi all,

It's been a while and I am pleased with this new look and feel of the forum. So, since it has changed I have been offline.

I've got this puzzle, which is the phobia-like behaviour of my 4-year old daughter. Whenever she spots a fly, she freaks out. She is alright with dead flies and flies on a save distance, however flies that sit on a chair next to her, let alone sit on her arm, make her scream and cry.

If she had been older, I would have been able to help her, I'm a Master Practitioner after all. For now, I could only think of giving her a helpful resource, being a magic spell :eek: which she has to speak out over the fly with waving arms.

Any ideas of how to help her otherwise??

Cheers,
Bas.

[j0hnny#]

Hi Grover, while I was reading your post it occured to me that perhaps some kind of storytelling may offer some kind of a solution. I have been thinking recently about t.v. adverts (along with adverts in general) and about how it is that they are so powerful in their persuasiveness.. I have also been wondering something about the state of mind often referred to as somnabulisitic, where suggestions made bypass the critical faculties. Seems to me that, in those ads catered for your interest, this can/may be acheived in advertising through the use of metaphorical imaginings designed to occupy you in your agreeableness to the product/service under the mediums of sensation it allows (so, visual, auditory along with being potentially effectual in all internal manners of representation)..... (pre)occupying you before/whilst suggesting powerfully the strong association with your agreeableness their brand name. It is possible that adopting similar approach with obvious modifications may be worth exploring in relation to your daughters problem ...

Would that kind of approach work for a 4 year old?

?

[Calvin Iwema]

You might try reframing the "meaning" of flies, whatever that is for her. You could invent a fairy tale about a little boy or girl, who used to be afraid on something (something very non-threatening) and then overcomes it, using language to place it into the past, embedded commands, etc. While you are doing this, you might subtly point to her when taking about the hero of this story, who is no longer afraid of (flies). Maybe a boy who was afraid of (her favorite pet or doll), and since she is as smart as any boy...., she can handle any situation, especially one as small and insignificant as a fly. You might also want to use humor, and anchor that to the whole learning process.

You know what her likes and dislikes are, as well as some of her beliefs, all of which can be used. Her age is a strength, she is probably a great hypnotic subject (TV), so I'm sure you will think of exactly the right thing, at the right time, for both of you.

[Merlin]

Hypnosis works great with kids since it is language based and doesn't need to depend on other developed modalities.

[Peter St.Cloud]

Hi Grover



Using hypnosis on children is always a bit controversial and a tad dodgy and leads to a host of ethic questions.



My professional advice is to treat the fly phobia with humour, portray the fly as comical characters say in a story illustrated with pictures of a fly in silly outfits. You can also use visualisation to help combat the fear. Simply get her to image the fly in a large silly hat and silly boots speaking in a silly voice, make a game of it. Then use the principle of gradually exposing her to the fear, whilst always being reassuring.

Knowledge dispels fear so explain how the fly is harmless and plays an important role in nature, but do it in an amusing way, make it fun.

I’ve found over the years that what parent dislike about their children is often thing they do their selfs. Kids have the tendency to modal the people around them so find out if a member of your family over reacts to flies.


Peter Saint Cloud (http://www.geocities.com/peterstcloud) -
Simply the best name in first class hypnotic preformances(tm)
Named Best UK Stage Hypnotist - 2004

[solaris152000]

No, it is fine to use hypnosis on children if you have parenntal consent, it works a treat and as young children are almost always in the alpha state of mind inductions can be shortened, and the suggestions are more effective.

[Don]

Peter, while I agree with some of your practical ideas, could you comment some more on your concept that "knowledge dispels fear?" I have read that many times, but I'm not so sure it's true.

Fears are from our unconscious. We often don't know why we have them. There often is no conscious reason for them. Simply giving a person with fear knowledge that there is no reason to have that fear will not always result in the end of a fear.

Telling a person that the fist-sized spider only eats fruit may not lower the stress level if you put that big spider on them. Attaching ropes to a person who is afraid of heights so that they cannot fall off of a 20-story building may not make it easy for them to walk the edge of the roof.

I would content that knowledge is probably part of the answer to resolving fears, but it is not the complete answer.

What are your thoughts on this? What do other people think?

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? ;-)

[Grover]

Don, Peter, Solaris, Merlin....all....

Let me thank you for your opinions. I also believe humour is an absolute must in approaching this. I have tried to inform all about how flies play a useful role in nature, it does not take away the fear. And your replies made me think of another approach. As she is very well drawing butterflies, I can of course shift the artwork towards drawing flies. So she can use her own imagination and make flies fun.

Cheers,
Bas.

[Merlin]

>Using hypnosis on children is always a bit controversial

I like controversy

> and a tad dodgy and leads to a host of ethic questions.

Ethics? Nonsense!

[EC]

Ok Don I'll play,

I agree with Don that knowledge is rarely adequate to overcome a problem.

I agree with Peter however, as to the approach with a young child, and that the "fear" of flies "came from somewhere", perhaps the parents, but perhaps not.

knowledge is a tricky word and in and of itself, is not sufficient to resolve problems. If however that knowledge is associated with prior experiences and re-framed, it will work. Confused??

Here is what I mean - A real case (Though I generally do not work with children): I recently worked with a 6 year old boy that was expressing serious resistance to going to school. He had the normal "being afraid jitters" at the start of the year, however the resistance started a couple months into the year. This was a very "head-strong" young fellow as he would refuse to go, scream all the way and continue to act out to avoid going to class. Parents seemed quite well balanced with a good relationship/communication with the boy but could not determine what the problem was. School psychologist was stumped and had no answer.

Because we are motivated either by fear or pleasure, and this behavior certainly was not pleasure, I started looking for the fear. I did not ask him what the problem was, I asked him to tell me about his class, friends, teacher etc. He "zeroed in" on the teachers aid (large overbearing middlew age woman) who screamed at the children when the teacher was out of the room.

From his mother earlier, I had learned that he was an only child, highly intelligent, that had been primarily around parents until school (somewhat sheltered). This radical large teachers aid was a new and scary experience for him. He was afraid of her.

In talking, I learned that the most painful experience in his 6 years had been in the past summer when a wasp had stung him just below the left eye. I later used this "known" fear/pain and associated it to the worst pain the teachers aid could do to any of the kids. He agreed that she couldn't make him hurt any worse than that. I then turned it comical, painted a picture of the rather large aid flying around the class pointing her stinger and threatening to sting the children, except that the school has rules that she cannot violate and actually sting anyone. He imagined how angry and frustrated she would be and got a big laugh out of the whole thing. According to the parents, the next day he asked to see the school principle and asked him if the aid could hit the children. When my contention was confirmed to him, all problems disappeared.

School is now out for the summer and his mother tells me he is looking forward to the second grade.

So, was this resolution just knowledge?
Would this have worked had I just painted the picture without associating the wasp sting "known" as a basis in case what I am telling him fails to be true?

I doubt it. Knowledge is necessary but must be associated.

Children are fully "unconsiously" operative until about 9 years old in most cases. They react quickly to fear and that fear, being "close to the surface, newly formed", is easy to resolve with "adequate" associative knowledge. Hypnosis in the true sense of the word is not necessary. Simply understanding that we are all motivated by either fear or pleasure and painting a new picture, associated to prior experience is adequate. Works for adults also.

It's not necessary IMO to be a great hypnotist, it is however critical to have a good solid working knowledge of altered states and "how we learn" and create behaviors.

"Erickson" ???

EC

[EC]

Ps: Grover,

Don't forget to create an association.

Knowledge alone, "Flies are natural just like butterfly's" is not adequate.

Hope this helps,

EC

[Annie]

Hi EC,

From my experience working with children/adults, I agree with these 2 statements :
1. " Children are fully "unconsiously" operative until about 9 years old in most cases. Hypnosis in the true sense of the word is not necessary. "
and

2. also : " Critical to have a good solid working knowledge of altered states" how true, and Well said ! - especially people understanding myriads of Inwardly-focused states like : "autistic", "coma", "alzheimers", & others like them. Such people will continue suffering under current "drugging, shocking or social-shunning/banning".

Were someone helping *re-frame* their experiences; and they will respond more quickly to someone evidencing to them being a friend they can trust ... Really, from my own experience helping
such people, I can vouch for that.


Annie



Ok Don I'll play,

[Peter St.Cloud]

Hi:D

Fear works on what you know and also on what you don’t know, the fear of the unknown is a potent fear. Some psychologists believe like the fear of heights and the fear of loud noises that it innate, something we are born with however this is a debatable fact. It doesn't really matter if its something we are born with all learn it still remains that the unknown terrifies people. I had the opportunity last night to chat with the mysterious fakir Bungdit Din, seven son of a psychic seer and master miracle worker. He told me that usually most fears and phobias could be dissolved with knowledge and laughter. He finished in saying we fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them before he disapeared in a cloud of smoke. The keyword in the conversation was "usally" knowledge is part of the answer for some people.

Regards
Peter Saint Cloud (http://www.geocities.com/peterstcloud)
Simply the best name in first class hypnotic preformances(tm)
Named Best UK Stage Hypnotist - 2004

[EC]

The mysterious fakir Bungdit Din, seven son of a psychic seer and master miracle worker is certainly non-committal isn't he?

Evidence >> keyword in the conversation was "usually" knowledge is part of the answer for "some" people.<< ??


Perhaps >>knowledge is part of the answer for "some" people.
or
Perhaps >>"usually" knowledge is part of the answer for people.
or
Maybe >>>>knowledge on some level is part of the answer for people, but is rarely adequate in and of itself. Problem resolution generally requires a re-frame (NLP) of the behavior expressed, or, requires a new interpretation of the knowledge leading to a resulting change in the behavior.

[j0hnny#]

Problem resolution generally ........



hmmm.....:rolleyes:

[EC]

Hi jOhnny,You really ought to do something about that name!

hmmmm, doesn't fit with *generally* because there are no absolutes when dealing with the mind, especially someone else's.

Really came back on though to correct something I said in the first post: I said

>> Knowledge is necessary but must be associated <<

This must have been a mis-print? I agree with Don. Knowledge is not always necessary and sometimes you don't have it.

EC

[TaffyE]

Some one posted a resolution of a child's fear in the old forum, which consisted of asking the child what would remove the fear, then play acting the process.

F(alse)
E(vidence)
A(ccepted as)
R(eal)

[oznlp]

Gedday Grover and Co
I wonder whether or not the ¨live¨ submos of flies couldn´t give a clue or two. Does she respond to their proximity? Their sudden movements? Their unpredictable flight paths? Their tendency to go for the face? The noise? The feel of them?
Do beetles and mosquitoes cause her any probs?
Does it have anything to do with nursery rhymes? (There was an old woman who swallowed a fly perhaps she´ĺl die)
Did she see Bart grow a fly´s head on the Simpsons?
Maybe a retelling of a story or nursery rhyme would help?

oznlp

[Merlin]

Oznlp,

The nice thing about the work hypnotists/NeLPers do is that...

>I wonder whether or not the ¨live¨ submos of flies couldn´t give a clue or two.
>Does she respond to their proximity?
>Their sudden movements?
>Their unpredictable flight paths?
>Their tendency to go for the face?
>The noise? The feel of them?
>Do beetles and mosquitoes cause her any probs?
>Does it have anything to do with nursery rhymes? (There was an old woman who swallowed a fly perhaps she´ĺl die)
>Did she see Bart grow a fly´s head on the Simpsons?
>Maybe a retelling of a story or nursery rhyme would help?

None of all that matters :)

[j0hnny#]

Hi jOhnny,You really ought to do something about that name!

hmmmm, doesn't fit with *generally* because there are no absolutes when dealing with the mind, especially someone else's.

Really came back on though to correct something I said in the first post: I said

>> Knowledge is necessary but must be associated <<

This must have been a mis-print? I agree with Don. Knowledge is not always necessary and sometimes you don't have it.

EC
Hi EC

was really just having a dig at the non-commital criticism..... and, what?, you don't like my name? which by the way is j0hnny# not jOhnny... please spell it correctly in the future...




;)

[Grover]

Hi guys (m/f)

Have I got news for you!!! My daughter is improving by the day in her reaction to flies. First I searched for comic books with flies in it, but failed to find one.

The big trick I tried (and appears to work) is to personalise the beast. We now call flies Japie (Dutch name like Jimmy or j0hnny:D ) if it's a boy or Madelief if it is a girl. And if, during lunch or so, a fly crosses our meal, we wave goodbye.

As of now, flies still aren't her preferred companions, but for example yesterday, she calmly asked "Daddy, could you please get that fly of my arm" instead of screaming the glass out of our windows.

Thanks for your support on this issue.

Cheers,
Bas.

[Terry]

Hi Grover, long time since we heard from you. Now it seems you have stired up a controversy with your question, but I have no intention of getting involved with it, because I like some of all the answers, and not all of any (G)
See, I look ahead, and recognise that one day, your little one is going to feel the need to kill flies, since they do breed desease, and we don't need them landing on our food. Indeed, she is likely to see you doing it, and making a comic of the fly, may breed a form of comfort in her that negates against killing them (G) Get the point? She's four you say, well, just as a suggestion, why not let her have access to a spray bottle filled with water, and suggest that if she can spray the fly before it can get away, it may turn into a butterfly, a beatifull one of many colours...
This will concentrate her thoughts on something other than that the fly is a threat to her in some way, and get her thinking of changing that threat to something delightfull. Eventually of course, she will grow up and kill her first fly, thus releasing her from the fear. Until then, she needs to be concentrating on something non threatening without feeling any sympathy for the fly.......Hope that is of some help. Terry

[j0hnny#]

Hey thats great news Grover man...! Though I'm still trying to work out if being a dutch beast is a good or bad thing.... heh,heh,heh ;)

Personally, though, I think the most amazing thing is that you can actually tell the difference between male and female flies... wow - :D - (just kidding likesay, just kidding :) )

You can check out this fly (you might not want to show this to your daughter just yet though.....) http://www.do-not-zzz.com/

And there is something, perhaps, to what old Terry is saying especially if you own a restaurant. Though I must admit I can't remember the last time I killed a fly - or felt any particular need to (but then I'm relatively young I suppose)

[Merlin]

>Personally, though, I think the most amazing thing is that you can actually tell the difference between male and female...

it's not that hard, really. Just check under their skirt ;-)
Use a mirror so you don't get caught though

[j0hnny#]

:D heh,heh,heh,heh,heh,heh ... yep that would be a useful determiner... heh, heh.....

[hypnomulley]

Hi Bas, how old is your daughter? Did you ever hypntize her before? If so I had one with a child and she was scared of flies also. So I created a cartoon fly for her the old cartoon Fearless Fly.

As she saw it in her mind it made her laugh as this cartoon fly was doing funny things. Now when see sees a fly the cartoon fly pops in her head and she giggles with fly's now. I hope this helps. Sincerely, Frank