On a dog walk with a friend earlier this week, I passed by a group of mums talking about how they could barely keep their **** together with their kids during lockdown. They were so relieved that the kids were going back to school but weren't looking forward to the weeks ahead of the school holidays with so many of the usual facilities likely to be closed. It had clearly been a huge struggle and in the battle to stay calm and not shout, they had lost. 

I know from client calls that in some cases they had given up on homeschooling, recruited friends with older children or paid tutors. They didn't like home schooling and didn't feel their children appreciated their efforts; often telling them they didn't explain things properly or like their teacher would. 

Their partner would be working elsewhere and couldn't be disturbed and they were left to manage schooling as well as the house, cooking and their own work. Many were also concerned about their elderly parents. But you know all this. We've all been through it haven't we? 

But I want to tell you about how we can stay calm and be patient because we can. 

Imagine the most patient person you have ever met. Who is it? 

For me it would be a friend who has a cerebral palsy child or it could be my dad's carer when he had a stroke (he has passed now) or perhaps it's one of the teachers at your child's school. 

What makes NLP different from other therapies such as CBT is the idea of modelling. 

Modelling in NLP is the process by which we can acquire new skills. It is based on the understanding that if we find someone who has the skill we want then by copying its structure and the underlying belief, we can have it for ourselves. It is a very powerful technique enabling us to incorporate into ourselves, other people’s skills and gifts. The excellence that we model is something we think someone does better than anyone else but we too can have our own excellence. We have skills we use in another part of our life that we want to transfer, that too can be modelled.

“When we step into someone else’s shoes and reproduce what they do and the results they achieve, we are modelling.” Sue Knight

“In modelling we elicit the strategies, beliefs, values and fundamental filters and the physiology that allows someone to produce certain behaviour. Then we codify these in a series of steps designed to make the behaviour easy to reproduce.” Jeremy Lazarus

So first you find a few people who can do this really well. You observe them and work out how they do this. What do they do first, then next and so on. Notice what you see . hear and the actions you witness. If you were to go away and copy this structure you may improve your result but you won’t get the same result as them because your thinking is different. You know your thinking is different because if it were the same you’d not get the result you get now. So you need to find out what they are thinking. You need to find out their values and beliefs about getting things done by the deadline. What’s different in their thinking that enables them to have this patience. You can get their thinking and underlying beliefs by asking them directly ‘what’s important to you about being patient in this situation?’ and then go through the structure again with this answer and way of thinking in your mind.

You can also think about your own life. Is there an area of your life where you are patient? We don’t behave the same in all situations. Perhaps in a craft, in music, reading or other activity you do this with great patience. Imagine you’re doing that now. What’s the underlying belief about why you’re doing this like this? Take this belief and apply it to where you need it.

It is much easier than you think to take on someone’s belief and it starts by saying to yourself ‘what if I believed this?’ and then ‘acting as if’ you do. Once we have their structure and beliefs we can start thinking about the values they must have that underpin them. We test out our hypotheses by repeating what we have observed and taking on the beliefs and values. One by one we remove different elements to find out which parts of our model are the ones we need to replicate the excellence. Then we have our model which we can teach to others and the proof of how successfully we have modelled will lie in the ability to pass it on to others who can then get the same result.

How can we apply this to help children?

Children enjoy modelling their TV and video game heroes. When they have problems with fears and anxieties, asking them to imagine they are their hero works very well in getting them into a brave state of mind where they can conquer their fears. Ask ‘what would x do? ‘Children have fantastic imagination and can easily turn into their hero and take on their persona in order to feel brave. This is a much better strategy than crawling around under the bed talking to imaginary monsters.

If they want to be better at schoolwork they can emulate the person in their class who gets the best marks. They need to find out how this child succeeds, what is his strategy? Does he learn visually, auditory or kinaesthetically? What is his process? When does the process start? It may start much earlier than when he starts the work.

You can use modelling to acquire skills from anyone you admire. This extract was taken from 'Secrets of the NLP Masters' available from my website or Amazon. ​

​I want to tell you about EFT because it is now an important ingredient in my NLP Kids Practitioner Training course and in my kids coaching practice. It would not be an exaggeration to say that I use EFT with 90% of my clients – children, teens, mums and dads, couples and singles. Everyone gets the chance to connect to their feelings and clear those that block them from being who they want to be.

EFT developed out of TFT (Thought Field Therapy) which was discovered by Dr Roger Callahan in the 1980s when he was using the Chinese Meridian points with his patients, tapping on the meridian point that connected to their pain or illness. One of his students, Gary Craig further developed it by reducing the tapping points and creating a simple sequence which became known as the Emotional Freedom Technique in 1990. So whilst it is based on ancient Chinese medicine, the protocol is relatively new compared to NLP.
Whilst NLP would not be described as a ‘talking therapy’, like CBT of Counselling, EFT is an ‘energy healing modality’ which means that there is very little talking and what there is, is what we call ‘clean language’ because we use a series of questions to ‘set up’ the process and then just tap on the points and say the client’s words. We don’t even need to know what it is we are tapping with them on!

What I totally love about EFT though is the lack of story, the lack of content and how it goes straight to the pain, the grief, anger, sadness without the back story. These techniques enable us to work content - free (story – free) . There are a number of reasons why I might want to do this.

Clients who are totally into their head, all the chatter, the story, the ‘who did what and when’ and the history of the issue. My first thought is to start where you are right now. Start with the feeling about all of this story. “When you think of all this that you want me to know, what is the feeling, where is it in your body, what’s the colour?”  and we get tapping.

This approach gets you into your subconscious mind connecting with the emotions. Working with mums, we need to get back to your own childhood to help you with your relationship with your children. This means there is a lot of story and the bit I need is buried in your subconscious mind. It will be about what you made something mean when they were too young to understand the story. The shock at the time sent you  into ‘freeze’ and you formed that core belief that you then live out, attracting evidence of its truth throughout your life. Rather than hearing all these examples, it is much more efficient and respectful of your time, I feel, to get straight into the feeling and tap on those negative feelings to clear them.

It would be great to say that we can get rid of negative core beliefs in one session of tapping and we often can when we work with children as their belief was imprinted quite recently but for adults it will take more sessions, more time and many more visits to those early memories and the various different aspects of them.

Mums and dads and teachers are people of influence. What we say, matters. Sadly and completely unintentionally we say something in a moment of anger which may be completely unrelated to our child but because of the influence we have, they create in that moment a UDIN.
A UDIN is
Unexpected
Dramatic
Isolating
For which we have - No strategy

When clients are in emotional overwhelm. You just don’t know what you feel any more. There are so many emotions and you can’t see a way forward. You will be tearful and tired, feeling like you can barely function. By using this approach, I can  give you a tool you can use to manage the emotions as they come up.

Overwhelm happens more often with mums who come planning to address one issue and then find loads of other issues tumbling into the story, from childhood, perhaps their mum’s childhood or relationship issues they hadn’t planned to bring up.

When you need to work content-free EFT really comes into its own. This might be because a child or client doesn’t want to tell you the story itself. We can tap on
‘that thing that happened’
‘what I did’
‘what I said’
‘the thing I’m worried about’

What happens in an EFT session with me?
The first thing we do in any EFT session is to tune in.

1. Tuning in
Drink some water. Breathe. Put your hand on your heart and close your eyes.
Breathe in for 6 and out for 6. Imagine you’re breathing into your heart.
Do this three times.

Now thinking about the situation or issue on your mind,

• What’s the feeling or emotion?
• Where is it in the body?
• What colour is it?
• What shape, texture, size? (for size you can ask is it the size of a grape or a melon or….)
• Is it static or moving?
• Is there anything else about it?

SUDS level – on a scale of 0-10 where zero is nothing and 10 is very intense, what number would you give this feeling?

2.  Set up
We start by tapping on the karate chop point. This is the fleshy part of the hand at the side, between the base of your little finger and your wrist.
“Even though I feel this (name of emotion) in my (part of the body) I love and accept myself anyway

3. Tapping
So tapping with the flat of your hand you use a reminder phrase. or Reminder phrase as you tap.
This (colour) (emotion)
All this (emotion)
(colour) (emotion)
Tapping points
Crown
Side of eye
Other side of eye
Under eye
Under nose
Under mouth
Collar bone
Side

I usually do two rounds of tapping through the body points and then move through the hand points because most of my clients are children and teens so they need to use these at school and around their friends as they can’t suddenly start tapping their head!
Hand points are
Across the wrist
Side of thumb
Side of index finger
Side of middle finger
Side of ring finger
Side of little finger

4. FinishingWe aim to get down to a SUDs level of zero but I sometimes stop at a 1 or 2 if you want me to. This is partly because children often want to keep a bit of anxiety in exam situations so they are not so laid back they run out of time! Some want to leave it at 1 or 2 because that feels enough of a shift to be getting along with right now, or they are just bored and want to do another activity!

I always go back through the process with them so they know what to do when they are on their own. Sometimes I send them a reminder video as well.
​
So if you are considering having an EFT session with me, you know what will happen and I hope you will book one soon. Remember my first 20 minute consultations are free.

I want to share with you a number of ways you can tackle anxiety for yourself and help your children and teens.
 
1. You are brave
 
Anxious children are not anxious all the time in every situation, although they often believe they are. I’ve even had children arrive for an appointment announcing that they are anxious as if it’s their name! ‘Hello I’m anxious’. When they are like this, they expect to be anxious and it becomes their norm such that they don’t even notice the times when they are not. They delete that evidence and simply talk about all the times they are anxious because those examples fit their persona. I’ve had children who when something happens at school to make them anxious, they consciously think to themselves ‘I must remember to tell Mum when I get home’ even though it might have just been fleeting. But think, they’re dwelling on it all day as they want to remember it to recount when they get home.
 
If you think your child might be doing this, start to pay more attention to when they were brave. Ask them when they get home from school “when were you brave today?” and they will start to look out for examples of this during the day and think about those positive experiences instead ready to tell you when they get home.
 
Imagine how different their day will be and how this new pattern will start to make changes in their neural pathways!
 
2. Create a brave anchor 

Continuing on this theme and remembering that the word you’re focusing on does not have to be ‘brave’ it could be ‘confident’ or ‘calm’ the important thing is that you are focusing on the positive desired state rather than the state you don’t want. It’s called ‘towards thinking’ and we are taking responsibility for the outcome we want and putting it out in our energy field as in The Law of Attraction (which children totally ‘get’).
 
So how do we create an anchor?
 
When your child does the thing they want to do more of, decide on a sign that will mark it out so a thumbs up sign perhaps. Encourage them to use that sign each time they experience that positive state. After a while that becomes associated with it such that when they need to find that positive state, by using the sign they can instantly create it.
 
3. Five finger breathing
 
Hold your left hand up and use your index finger on your right hand to trace up the side of your left hand and gently run the finger up and down each finger of your left hand , finishing with your thumb. As you go up one side of the finger, breathe in and as you go down the other side, breathe out. Now go back round repeating the action until you arrive back at the base of your little finger.
Breathing is a very effective way to change state. Your breath affects every part of your body and increases the oxytoxin as you take in more oxygen and breathe out more carbon dioxide.
 
4. Colour breathing
 
What is the colour of your child’s anxiety? That might sound a strange question but actually they will be able to answer it quite easily.
 
Ask they to breathe out that colour from wherever they hold their anxiety in their body, often the chest or stomach area.
 
What colour would they like to breathe in? What does that colour represent to them? It might be a colour for ‘calm’ or for ‘relaxing’, for ‘confident’ or just ‘being ok’. If they don’t know what the colour represents that doesn’t matter. The idea is that they breathe in a colour to ‘lighten and brighten’ the anxiety, whatever colour they choose is right.
 
5. Visualisation 

Sometimes when children get stuck in a rut of anxiety, it becomes difficult to see another way. So ask them to visualise a positive outcome. Ask them to imagine what they’d like instead. I like the phrase “What would you like to have happen?” This gets them out of the rut to consider other options.
 
It often helps to suggest they look up when they are imagining as this connects us to the visual part of our brain. It also takes us out of our feelings which may be negative. When we look down we can become a bit reflective and by looking up it encourages us to have new more positive ideas.
 
6. EFT Tapping 

I teach my clients how to tap when they feel anxious. I also run free children’s tapping groups only via the Time to Tap Facebook group. Do join us! There’s one for children, one for teens and one for mums and dads.
 
7. Gratefulness Diary 

When children go to bed recording three things they are grateful for on that day, they find it easier to get to sleep, are less likely to wake up during the night with worrying thoughts about the day ahead and feel more positive when they wake up in the morning.
 
Some children like to write them down but it isn’t necessary so long as they ask themselves before they settle for the night ‘what are the three things I’m grateful for today?’.
 
8. Mindfulness 

I expect your child has learnt mindfulness at school. There are plenty of great mindfulness youtube videos, apps and downloadable scripts. I like the basic Body Scan as it’s so easy to do and children seem to like it. Get in touch if you’d like me to send you the MP3 or talk you through it.
 
9. Self – Compassion break 

Put your hands on your chest and tune in to how you feel
 
“I feel……………..”
 
Then stretch out both hands in front of you and say
 
“Children all over the world are feeling this right now”
 
Then take your hands back to your chest and say
 
“And what I need now is……………”
 
This is a great way for children to realise that they are part of a universe of children all over the world who are feeling just like them. They aren’t alone. It also encourages them to become aware of their needs. Maybe they need a hug, a glass of milk, to say sorry, to have some quiet time.
 
10. A mindfulness jar 

Take an empty glass jar and put some water in it. Now take a selection of different colour glitters. Tell your child to imagine that each colour represents a feeling. Ask them to out as much of each feeling into the jar as they have. They are to name the feeling as they put the glitter in the jar.
 
When they have finished. Put on the lid and shake the jar.
 
Explain that this is like their head full of all sorts of thoughts ; angry thoughts, sad thoughts, frustration, envy, jealousy and so on. They get all jumbled up and agitated. But when you sit quietly and watch, they all gradually settle on the bottom of the jar and the water becomes clear. When we are calm and still and wait, our bad thoughts settle and we can soon feel clear again.
 
If you have a child who is experiencing anxiety at the moment please get in touch and we can have a chat. I charge £50 for a 45 minute EFT Tapping session or £85 for a one hour therapy session. The Time to tap group tapping sessions I mentioned earlier , are free.
​https://www.facebook.com/groups/338971087071797/
 
 
 
 

I’m getting lots of calls and emails from parents who are experiencing behaviour in their child that is concerning them. Many parents are also behaving in a way that isn’t normal for them and they feel guilty and ashamed of themselves, upset and remorseful. Children pick this up and it adds to their own anxiety when their parents also don’t seem to be coping very well.
 
Many parents aren’t getting much time alone together to share their worries or just to comfort and support each other as children are staying up later, struggle to get to sleep, have nightmares and want to sleep with their parents.
 
We all need new tools for coping with our mental health. We also need to go easy on ourselves. Now is not the time to set ourselves challenging goals nor expect our children to be able to concentrate on their schoolwork when they are wondering when they will see their friends again. Some children will of course find attention to schoolwork reassuring, it is what they want to do but others will find it hard some days.
 
It is natural to be afraid, fear keeps us safe. It is fear that stops us getting too close to someone walking by us. It is fear that makes us sanitise when picking up some post or put away our food shopping, when we’ve returned from an activity outside our home.
 
In her book ‘Big Magic’ Elizabeth Gilbert talks about inviting ‘fear’ into the car on a road trip and asking them to sit on the back seat. By fear being on the journey (a metaphor for our life) it will stop us driving too fast, taking the bends too tight, going too near the edge of the road. Fear keeps us safe. It is a good thing to have.
However, Gilbert warns us that we should never let fear drive our car or fiddle with the controls. In fact when I was speaking at an event in London earlier this year, I suggested we imagine reaching back and pulling the screen across between us and our back seat passenger. They can be there and indeed we are grateful that they are but they may not control our driving.
 
When I explain this to children, they completely get it and understand that they should not be embarrassed or upset with themselves when they are fearful or anxious but instead be grateful and appreciative that they have this passenger to keep them safe. Having thanked fear for being there, they then need to acknowledge that they are ok , they can cope with the situation and have the skills they need and tell ‘fear’ that they can relax, all is well.
 
Another little explanation I give that they find helpful is to explain that our fear and anxiety is a bit like a smoke alarm going off when all we’ve done is burn the toast.
The amygdala in the brain is designed to send out an alarm when danger is near but whilst that was essential in caveman times when they might encounter a sabre tooth tiger, being asked a difficult question by your teacher really isn’t a life or death situation and there is no need for the smoke alarm.
 
Children find these explanations helpful because teachers and parents frequently ask ‘why’ they feel this way. The ‘why’ question send them to their conscious mind to find a logical answer that makes sense. But they can’t find it. Why? Because of course it isn’t about logical answers, their anxiety stems from core beliefs imprinted at birth or during the early years before their prefrontal cortex was even developed sufficient to process what happened. Understanding what happens, understanding that it is just their brain’s smoke alarm being a bit over enthusiastic and knowing that it is a good thing that they are aware of their emotions, really comforts them so that when it happens next they can just stop and say ‘there’s that smoke alarm, no need to panic, it’s just burnt toast’.
 
I also teach them how to do EFT Tapping and I have regular weekly groups for children, teens and parents every week. There they can drop in and tap with their own age group. They don’t have to even say what’s troubling them. They can put their mic on mute and even turn their camera off. They can send me a message in the chat box about what they want to tap on and I will include it in the process. We usually tap on missing friends, worrying about mum and dad, missing grandparents, annoying brothers and things like that.
 
If you think your child or teen would like to drop in just look for my Time To Tap Facebook group where you’ll find the session times under ‘events’. RSVP and I’ll send you the zoom link. If they would prefer a private session, I’m just charging £50 for a 45 minute private tapping session at the moment. The usual price for a consultation of an hour is £85 and first exploratory sessions of 90 minutes are £125.
If you’re not sure how I can help or just want a chat, please email me at judynlpeft@gmail.com
 
Have a look at my book page because NLP for Children, NLP for Tweens and NLP for Teens all have some great exercises and ‘Be a happier parent with NLP’ will give you a good understanding of how to help children develop these essential emotional skills for life.
 
Judy Bartkowiak is an NLP Trainer, EFT Trainer, Owner of NLP & EFT Kids and author of many NLP books for families , teachers and practitioners. Her website is www.nlpfamily.com and Facebook Page is NLP Kids. Judy has been working with children and teens for 40 years, first as a Qualitative Market Research Consultant and then since 2000 as a Children’s Therapist and Trainer. Judy and her husband Edward have four grown up children, one grandchild, a rather shaggy retriever called Zebedee and 5 hens. They live in Taplow, Berkshire, UK.
 

Some people thrive on choice and enjoy the element of selecting from a number of options, whether it be what to wear, what to buy, what to cook or eat or even what to say but others prefer to just pick something and go with it. In NLP terms we call it choices or process to indicate that those who don’t like choices want to work their way down a list of task as a process rather than branching off or pausing to make decisions. It isn’t really a bipolar scale, these are just the two ends of it.

“Having just one choice is no choice at all. The more choices you have, the more freedom you have to be in the driving seat of your car.” Steve Bannister

“The whole point of NLP is having more choice.” Richard Bandler

“You’re not just a leaf on the wind.” Anthony Robbins

“We are making hundreds, thousands even millions of unconscious choices every day about what we pay attention to and what we don’t. And this is fine, provided those choices work for us. However, if we are not getting the results we want, we can learn to make new choices until we find what does work.” Sue Knight

“Identifying, acknowledging, examining, and employing our parts, rules, and inner wisdom help us transform our internal process and deal with present circumstances. By removing our self-made limits, we expand our choices.” Virginia Satir

There may be situations in which you want choice, when you go out for a meal perhaps or in the boutique but in the rush of the morning you may prefer not to spend ages choosing what to wear or what to eat for breakfast. This means that you will be sliding up and down the scale depending on the situation. However, being aware of whether you want a choice or not can be helpful. If as you think about the situation presenting itself you decide whether choices will help or hinder the process you will work more efficiently. This is particularly the case when working with others.
​
In a family situation it is very important to make it clear to your children what are options and which are not. There has been a growing trend to encourage children to make choices even at a very young age, whether to drink out of a red mug or a blue one, whether to wear this or that dress. This is inclined to make children capricious as they assume they can make decisions about everything which isn’t of course the case and can lead to some very lengthy preparations for leaving the house! You need to prepare your children for accepting your decisions and make it clear when they can choose and when it isn’t possible or appropriate. You can signal this by asking ‘would you like to choose?’ when there is a choice.

In the family you would similarly offer false choices to children who want choice so “would you like to do your homework with a cup of tea or a glass of milk?” Note that not doing homework wasn’t an option! Also, with ‘like’ and ‘homework’ close together in the sentence you are giving them a slightly hypnotic connection which might not have been present for them.

First decide on your compelling outcome. What end result do you want from the discussion or negotiation? What will you concede and what is non-negotiable? Simply going through this process has a remarkably calming effect and puts you in the driving seat. If for example the pick-up time is non-negotiable you can give them a choice of how they come home, with whom and by what means of transport. If the time you have to leave for the school run is non-negotiable give them a choice about getting dressed before or after breakfast or whether to wear a jumper or not, whether they need to give their shoes a clean.

There is always a choice, not just in terms of the ‘how’ but also a choice in how you ask. You can speak in rapport, using your child’s preferred language pattern – visual, auditory or kinaesthetic. If they are talking about what they don’t want e.g. “I don’t want to put on my shirt” mention something you don’t want in order to match them “and I don’t want to be late for the bus.” If they say ‘yes but’ or ‘no’ this is a mismatch pattern which you can still match for rapport by using the same pattern ‘yes but homework needs to be done first’ or ‘no, it has to be done first, then TV.

Learning about NLP means that we have choices based on more knowledge about ourselves and how we see our world and a better understanding of the other person’s world. We can then choose how we want to communicate with them.

Find out more about the NLP metaprogrammes and about how to apply NLP principles and techniques in your parenting. Maybe you'd like to talk with me about becoming an NLP Kids Practitioner yourself or learning about how to combine NLP with your existing job in teaching or other child-related work.  

As parents or teachers, carers of children, you have a very important role to play in giving them feedback. Feedback is a gift of love that shows you care about them and have an investment in their personal development. Can there be anything worse than being ignored? Children need to know that you’re paying attention to them and they want to know where they need to make changes because that’s your job as a parent, to guide them so they can achieve all they can in life. 

The giving and receiving of feedback is how we learn. At its simplest level a stand-up comedian will adapt his programme constantly to suit his audience with more of what they are clapping and cheering and less of what gets no reaction. We need to be a bit like the stand-up comedian and notice where we get a connection with our children when they do what we asked and being resourceful. When they are not we need to use feedback to get them back on track. We need to constantly be open and curious to what is working and getting a result, the result we want anyway! We are getting feedback from them and giving them feedback, it is a constant flow of energy and learning. 

Many people feel that they learn more from their mistakes than from successes. In fact, apparently pupils who struggled with maths at school become excellent maths teachers because they understand how to get it wrong. As parents we can be inclined to jump in and do things for our children, take responsibility for organising them and their free time, even decide when and where homework should be done. Allowing children to take responsibility from an early age means that they will make mistakes and our job is to allow them to do that and let them get the learning so that the next time they do it, they do it better. Encourage them to be curious because that is how children learn, by wanting to know more and to understand rather than being told.

Feedback is how they learn whether that is feedback in terms of a bad mark at school or school report, losing a tennis match or football game, losing a friend, missing the miss, getting a detention for homework not completed correctly; these are all feedback from which they will learn how to improve and get a better result. When these sort of things happen to children let them get the feedback rather than believing that unless you tell them they won’t know.

When we aren’t introduced to feedback as learning we can find ourselves taking it as criticism and becoming defensive or we feel a failure and lose self-esteem. You can show your children how to respond to feedback by how you demonstrate it yourself. The best way to show them how to respond is to pause, be curious about the learning and thank the giver of the feedback. 

Encourage children to give themselves feedback. We all, even children, have a nagging little inner voice that gets cross and tells us off but it needs to learn how to give feedback in a way that we can learn from it, not feel permanently stupid and lose confidence.
Here’s how to do it:
a)What specifically went well today? (3 things)
b)What could have been better? (1 thing)
c)How could I do that better next time?
d)Overall, what lessons have I learnt? 

 You can find more about feedback and tips for homeschoolers on my Facebook group and I've recorded several videos that talk about how to apply these NLP principles at a practical level. You'll find them on my You Tube channel

Kinaesthetics learn by doing, they need to physically experience the learning because they are active full body learners. You’ll see them fidgeting in classrooms when they have to sit still for long periods and they need to take a break regularly to run about and stretch. They’re usually quite sporty and in touch with their body and how it feels so they will be quite tactile and sensitive to the heat and cold. They will also be quite expressive. 

“If they are kinaesthetic, slow waaay dooown . Talk to them about feelings. Change your pace so that it matches theirs, and really get a feel for what they are communicating.” Terry Elston
​
“What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.” Confucious 

Characteristics of kinaesthetic are that they will be active speakers and listeners and use facial expression, hand and body gestures and will fiddle and fidget when talking rather than the stiller pose of the auditory student. They refer to their ‘gut feelings’ and ‘being in touch’ with their feelings and may respond more emotionally to events than one might expect. Comfort and bodily temperature is important to them so extremes of heat and cold are not endured easily. It is important to them to be comfortable in their own skin, wear clothes that are comfortable rather than ones that look good (visual). Furniture is also bought for comfort rather than style.

They want to get ‘stuck in’ and do rather than watch or be told. It’s all about involvement physically and mentally. Given a new piece of equipment, rather than read the instructions they’ll just work it out for themselves by trial and error. They will get themselves from A to B by what feels like the right route rather than read a map or listen to the satnav. They will be conscious of atmosphere and want to be in rapport because not to be would feel so uncomfortable.

Physically they are very active and will want to stand much closer to you than you may be comfortable with but don’t move away as this will break rapport. They may want to touch your elbow or arm as you’re chatting and they will probably hug and kiss on greeting and leaving. They talk slowly , even slower than an auditory person and tend to look down as they speak as they get in touch with their emotions. Their choice of words will reflect their action and feelings orientation so expect to hear words like ‘feel’, ‘touch’, ‘get hold of’, ‘catch on to’, ‘get a handle on’ and ‘make contact with’. If you work with a kinaesthetic child, you’ll find that they need to be moving and learn best when they appear to be doing something else. Avoid static learning situations.  

Kinaesthetic learners learn by moving touching and doing. Hands-on learning is what they like best actively exploring the world around them. They will remember well what they have done but will have trouble remembering what was said or seen. Fiddling is second nature as is doodling  - why do one thing when you can do two? They’ll have trouble sitting still in a classroom so plenty of active breaks are needed as well as opportunities to move about through class activities such as group work or practical activities.

As a kinaesthetic student you may not be able to control your classroom environment or ask for breaks but there are things you can do to aid your learning. Use coloured highlighters to mark up your notes and use mind maps to transfer information into a form that makes it easier to remember.
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When you have subject choices choose subjects that are more practical or those that have practical elements such a Geography with field trips, science, drama, sport and design. At home when revising or doing homework use flash cards or memory games, interactive programmes on the computer in order to make the most of the material. Many computer based revision programmes offer multiple choice questions and these will suit you. 

I've taken this content from 'Secrets of the NLP Masters' a book I wrote a few years ago which has examples of NLP principles and techniques from all walks of life; work, home, school. sport, health. More specific family examples can be found in 'Be a happier parent with NLP'. Both are available from my website, Amazon and The Book Depository. 

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Whether as students of teachers we need to know which internal representation system we naturally prefer although flexibility is essential because very often we have to adapt to someone’s teaching or learning style that doesn’t come so easily to us. You are auditory if you prefer to learn by being told rather than reading off a white board or printed sheets or book. 

“If you want to get good rapport, you can speak using the same kind of predicates that the other person is using. If you want to alienate the other person, you can deliberately mismatch predicates.” Richard Bandler and John Grinder 

“Your students with the auditory learning style, about 20 per cent of your class, will also be your social butterflies, so it's important to make good usage of their strengths while dampening their need for social time during a lecture.” Kelly Roell

People who would describe themselves as auditory enjoy sounds and music but not noise as they want to control the sounds around them. They enjoy conversation and listening to other people talking such as radio plays and discussions. What people say is very important to them as well as the way they say it. There are two variations of auditory; auditory internal and auditory digital. They are both forms of self-talk. The voice behaves like an inner check to sound out whether what someone says is logical or makes sense. It’s like having your own personal radio in your head and can enable you to be slightly disassociated or disconnected because you don’t directly respond but check out first whether your response is ‘correct’. This can be useful in jobs where an emotional or unguarded response could be unwise such as in the Police or teaching.

Auditory learners learn best through spoken lessons either direct from a teacher in a classroom or via videos , CDs , DVDs MP3 audios , audio books and other online learning environments where there is a spoken word. They enjoy learning through discussion as well so they can assimilate what they’ve learned. Equally in the work environment an auditory boss will favour giving oral instructions and you will prefer being told what to do rather than receiving an email or text. We want to work in rapport so match your bosses preferred representational system and if you are auditory and he or she is not, ask him to tell you, explain it briefly or let you hear it from him. If they are auditory and you are not then you’ll need to write down what they say so you have a visual record to refer to if you are visual and if you are kinaesthetic then you may need to ask them to ‘run it by you again’ if you aren’t clear so ask them to ‘repeat it’.

 When communicating with an auditory learner use words like hear, listen, sound, question and resonate. In order to gain rapport with auditory learners or indeed an auditory teacher speak slowly and choose words carefully. The pitch should match theirs which will be fairly low with their breathing from the mid chest. They will look across not up or down and construct long sentences with questions because they like to interact. When you are talking it may look as if they are thinking about what they want to say next but they are probably just processing what you’ve said so leave a silence for them to get their thoughts and the right words together. If you jump into the silence you will break rapport by not enabling them to contribute to the conversation. 

For more information and ideas about parenting or educating (or both if you're reading this as a homeschooling parent, you can find plenty of information in 'Secrets of the NLP Masters' or 'Be a happier parent with NLP' both available via my website or from Amazon. 

65% of the population are visual learners and it is defined as ‘keeping pictures in our heads’, This is the first skill babies are tested for at 6 weeks when they are checked to find out if they recognise their mother. They do of course but if mum then puts on a pink curly wig they will cry because the picture doesn’t match the picture they’ve got in their head. We use our visual memory to create words and pictures, to do comprehension, revision, sequencing, mind mapping and for short term memory. When people learn visually they make pictures in their head and it is easiest when teaching visual learners to teach them through the pictures they generate. Indeed 90% of the information that comes into our brain is visual . They notice what they see and are very observant. They can easily switch from a 2D image and imagine the 3D version so for example they can see a picture of a house and then imagine it as 3D. Whilst this is an essential skill for architects and designers it can be quite confusing when children are learning to read and the 2D images of the letters become 3D and move about.

When children learn visually they see a picture of the word and associate it with the picture of the meaning of the word and if they are counting they visualise say two apples and three apples. In order to access their visual memory they need to look up so do this if you’re a visual learner and if you are a teacher be sure to tell children who learn visually to look up. Some teachers have been known to tell children gazing up into space ‘you won’t find the answer up there’ but actually they will.  

Words to use when teaching or communicating with a visual learner.

See, look, view, appear, show, reveal, imagine, clear, focused, hazy, picture.

When they ‘don’t see what you mean’ you will need to ‘show them again’.

Use diagrams, maps, mind maps, graphs , colours and pictures to teach visual learners and if you are the student, take what you are told and represent it visually to make it easier to learn. You probably already love drawing and doodling with colours so you’ll not need any prompting. You enjoy organising your notes into coloured folders or with file tabs and different colour dividers. Careers that will suit you will be artistic ones such as photography, video or film, design, planning, art, architecture and similar. 

How do you know if you’re visual?

Of course you won’t only be visual, you will have times when you are enjoying your auditory and kinaesthetic processing systems but you can check which your preferred one is quite easily by doing the following.

Thinking about yesterday, what comes to mind? Are you thinking about what you saw, what you heard or what you did?

When you think about your holiday plans do you imagine where you’d like to go, remember what people have told you about somewhere or think about what you’d like to do on holiday?  

In conversation with friends do you notice how they’re dressed and their facial expressions, do you pay attention to what they’re saying or do you notice what they’re doing?
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Picture an elephant. Is it still or moving, where is it? If you’re a visual learner you will have lots of information about that elephant going on in your head at the same time. You’ll also have a choice and can picture it in different locations, different sizes and doing different things quite easily because as a visual learner the image will probably be moving and changing all the time. In fact you may sometimes get confused when you have too many options and too many images in your head all at the same time.
Just as visual people pay attention to what they see and like to have nice things around them, they will be upset by untidiness or ugly buildings, unattractive people or unpleasant areas. If you find yourself feeling like that then you are probably visual. 

Have you heard the expression “Don’t think about pink elephants!” What do we find ourselves doing? Thinking about pink elephants of course. In order to make sense of the instruction, we first have to get a picture in our head of a pink elephant. So we have now done exactly what we have been told not to do even though it wasn’t our intention. That’s how negative goals work too. As we focus on what we don’t want, inadvertently we are actually getting it.

 “In order to say no to something, your brain must first make an image of the thing you don’t want and then negate it. The problem is that at this point you’re already heading in the wrong direction.” Richard Bandler

Thinking about what you don’t want is problem thinking whereas thinking about what you do want is outcome thinking. Problem thinking arises when we focus on the thing that’s happening now which is of course the thing we don’t want. So the only way we will change and experience more of what we do want is to move away from the present problem state and towards the compelling outcome.

There are two directions in life, forwards and backwards, towards and away from. When Bandler and Grinder developed NLP back in the 60s they found as they studied successful people that they were all ‘towards’ orientated. They didn’t waste their time and energy on what they didn’t want but focused on getting what they did want.

‘Away from’ thinking focuses the mind on the present unsatisfactory situation that they want to change. When we try to get our brain to focus on what it doesn’t want, it gets confused. Think about some of these goals, have you ever had goals like these?

“I want to give up snacking”.
“I must get rid of all the junk in this room.”
“I’ve got to lose weight.”
“I don’t want to come last.”
“I hope I don’t fail.”
“I better not catch his cold.”
“I don’t want to be late.”

Have you ever told yourself ‘I mustn’t forget to…………’ and then found that you did indeed forget whatever it was. Your brain is saying ‘forget …..’ whereas if instead you told yourself ‘remember to……’ you’d have a lot more chance of being successful. On leaving the house for work my husband often tells me ‘don’t forget to………..’ and consciously I have to reword it ‘I must remember…..’otherwise I know I’d forget. It happens sometimes with children doesn’t it? You say ‘Be careful not to fall!’ and then they do just that. It’s because subconsciously they’ve heard the instruction to fall and they’ve focused on that word.

When people are focusing on the problem and being in a problem state there can be fear about what they’ll do when the problem’s fixed. What will they focus on next? Will there be a void in their life? Some people worry that they won’t know what to do with themselves when they are no longer worrying about this thing. This is another very good reason for focusing on something enjoyable, something they do want or who they want to be.
 
At the time of writing this we are going through a pandemic with thousands dying. Whole nations are confined to their homes, people are off work and incomes slashed. It is very easy to think about what we haven't got and what we can't do. But this thinking will not keep us safe. Instead we need to change from

I must keep away from other people to I must ensure I have a 2m space around me 
I mustn't forget to wash my hands to I must remember to wash my hands

Focusing on what we do want rather than on what we don’t want is a matter of thinking first what we really want, imagining what it will be like and taking it on as our identity. This moves us from a state of problem thinking where the focus is on what we don’t want and moves us along the road towards what we do want which is our compelling vision for ourselves.

Looking for a great book to read with bite size chunks on how NLP can help you across all areas of your life? Examples cover relationships, family, health, sport and work. You can buy it here 

​If you're struggling at the moment and need some help please book a free first chat by emailing me