I've seen a lot of teenagers this week, both on Skype and here in my therapy room (my dining room in fact!) at home. The pressure is on, motivation is low and there's a lot of depression and anxiety in the air. 
So if this is what your home feels like right now, here are a few top tips to share with your kids.
#Alevels #gcse #revision #anxiety #stress #depression #teenagers#examstress
1. The fastest way to change state (mood) is to change your breathing so instead of going into your head and trying to battle it out there through reason and logic, instead - exercise (just run round the block, up and down stairs, skip) sing and dance to some music, laugh at a comedy show, breathe deeply do some yoga. 
2. Eat and sleep, drink plenty of water. Spend some time doing something for yourself that you love. Meet up with a friend, look after your emotional and physical needs. 
3. Visualise what a good result will look, sound and feel like. Can you imagine looking at your grade sheet, what would you like to see there? What will your parents say? How pleased will they be? How will you feel? Proud? Relieved? 
4. Chunk down (take your revision a bit at a time, one topic, one aspect) and take these small bites with a break in between. Then chunk up - what does it mean to have done that chunk? You're a step closer to being prepared for the exam. Chunk up again - you're on your way to college, uni apprenticeship. 
5. Set your compelling outcome for the day, what topics you want to do (be specific) set achievable goals factoring in some 'me time' and focus on what you want to achieve, set 'towards' goals. 
6. Instead of comparing yourself with others (external referencing) focus on how much more prepared you are yourself as each day passes. 
7. To gain extra focus do the 9 step gamut process. Eyes up, eyes down, eyes left, eyes right, roll eyes clockwise, eyes anticlockwise, hum, count 1-9, and hum. This will wake up both left and right side of your brain. Healthier than coffee or Red Bull!

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

In a family 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.

It is useful to know whether the person you are talking to likes choices or not in each situation because you will have greater rapport if you give choices to someone who wants them and not to someone who doesn’t.  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.
  
Parents need to know how to give choice when there is none because offering choices is not always an option when you want your children to get dressed to go to school by a certain time, eat healthy meals or do their homework. If you have older children you may not want to give them choices about what time to come home or where they go and with whom.

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.

 Even when there appears to be no choice in the ‘what’ that we have to do, there is always a choice in the ‘how’. There is a choice also in how we communicate, what we choose to believe about a situation and a choice in how we frame it. We can use anchoring to choose our most resourceful state and we can choose to communicate in rapport. These choices give us flexibility which puts us in control if we choose to be. 

This extract was taken from 'Secrets of the NLP Masters' by Judy Bartkowiak. 

Is anyone else experiencing kids saying they have this disorder or this syndrome, that issue, or some other condition?
These are called 'nominalisations' in NLP. They are labels, collective names for a large group of symptoms. It is a way of putting how they feel 'out there' at a distance from themselves, where it's safe and not about them and their own personal feelings.
When you child or teen does this, you can help them best by asking them these questions:
1. What exactly do you feel?
2. What's it like? 
3. When does it happen?
4. What happens just before the feeling? 
5. What would you like to have happen?
6. Is that within your control?
7. What could you do that is in your control? 
8. What seems to work best? 
9. Have you noticed how your friends respond in that situation, what could you try that seems to work for them?
10. Reassure them that it's OK to feel ........(child's word) and it's part of learning how to cope with a range of emotions that happen at their age.
Do not tell them it's nothing. They are trying to connect with you and want you to listen. It is every child/teen's right to be heard by their parents. Hug them and reassure them that you understand and are there for them.
Do not rescue them. Rescuing is when we take over and take responsibility for resolving their situation. It is not clean. By this, I mean that we are making assumptions about how it could best be resolved. But the map is not the territory. They already have the resources to solve their situation.
Trust that you have brought them up with the values they need and that if they need your help, they will ask for it.

Learn how NLP can really assist you and add to your parenting skills with 'Be a happier parent with NLP', It's full of ideas, NLP content and specific guidance with issues such as birth of second and subsequent children, moving house, moving school, death of a pet, help with learning etc 

Email me for your free extract of the first part of the book as a PDF

In NLP we use the term ‘metaphor’ to describe analogies, jokes, parables and stories, similes and allegories. It is an indirect way of communicating which bypasses the conscious mind and used creatively and appropriately it can have more impact than direct speech because we conjure up images and mental pictures rather than being restricted simply by the meaning of the word. The metaphor speaks of our relationship to the word . We use metaphors in everyday life when we express something using the terms of something else so ‘life is like a bed of roses’ or ‘mealtimes can be like a battle zone’. It is a good way to communicate a lot of complex information very efficiently, disclosing far more than had we just used a literal description. We can use metaphors to understand our feelings and create new metaphors for more resourceful ones.

The reason they work so well with children is because

1. they don't have ready access to the vast vocabulary of feelings
2. they do have an amazing imagination
3. they don't want to get it wrong
4. they don't want to have to explain 'why' 
5. it works with the subconscious mind which is often where the core belief is located
6. it taps into story telling so allows the child to disconnect with the emotional element of the feeling and step away from it into a safer place out of the body

“Stories get to the parts that other words don’t reach. They speak to you at an unconscious level. They enable you to convey information indirectly, to pace some’s current reality and then lead them on to a new one. To move away from problems to different outcomes. To open up new possibilities” Romilla Ready and Kate Burton

“Metaphors are not simply poetic or rhetorical embellishments, but powerful devices for shaping perception and experience.” Nick Owen

“Metaphors illuminate some aspects of an experience while leaving others aspects in the shadows.” James Lawley and Penny Tompkins

What typifies a metaphor is the word ‘like’. We look for patterns in our life. So this experience is like what other experience? When we encounter new things we search our memory for something similar that we do know about that will enable us to make sense of the new experience. Our brain naturally looks for patterns and it enables us to form links and learn new skills as we transfer them from one situation to another. Our unconscious mind by creating a metaphor creates new meanings and solves problems by distracting us from the content and engaging us in process.

I find children like to use animal, bird or insect metaphors but these type of question keep it open for them to be free to choose their own. If they aren't sure, ask, "what animal are you when you.........."
Let’s play with metaphors. Here are some situations your child may sometimes encounter. 

Answering a question in class is like what?
Putting your hand up in the lesson is like what?
Finding out that there's a test is like what?
Being late for school is like what?
Getting an answer wrong is like what?
Your best friend being off school is like what?.
Not being invited to a party or sleepover is like what?
Being told off by the teacher is like what?

Now think up some of your own.
 

Judy Bartkowiak is the author of a number of books for parents and families on NLP and self-development and she is an NLP Kids Practitioner Trainer. Judy has a successful practice in Burnham, Bucks and bookings can be made via her website.  You can contact Judy via the Facebook Group as well 

How we judge others is that shadow part of us. When we criticise others, find fault, get cross, feel angry with people based on what they've said or done, it has triggered something in us about the same thing.

​

So when you think - 

That was mean - ask yourself, how am I sometimes mean?
What was my belief at that time when I was mean? 

Think back to the last time you did something similar. 
What was your positive intention on that occasion?
Could there be a similar positive intention in this situation? 

Does this give you greater compassion and clarity? 

I met someone at a local business event who told me about his teenage son who was expressed extreme anger, throwing things around his room and shouting. He told me that he had punished the boy and taken his X Box away as a result and things had got so bad that the boy was throwing things out of his window and they were embarrassed the neighbours would see. 
I asked him "Can you think of a time when you were that angry yourself?" 
Initially he said "no, never" but then he remembered that a long time ago he had been overlooked for a promotion that 'should' have been his. He was very angry. 
I asked him "what was your belief at that time?" 
"It was so unfair." he said. 

This brought clarity. Fairness was a value he had brought his son up with and so it was highly likely that this was underpinning his anger. 
"Is there anything happening at the moment at home that your son may feel is unfair?' I asked. 
"Oh yes" he said. "I know exactly what to do and I'll talk to him when I get home." 

I am currently in Australia staying with my son, his lovely wife and baby daughter. Their way of life is understandably very different from mine as we don't have any young children at home any more. They like to keep surfaces clean and clear, safety gates need to be kept closed and noise kept to a minimum after baby has been put to bed. On several occasions I have slipped up and my son has been annoyed. I found myself feeling hurt because I hadn't meant to be careless but his positive intention was to keep my granddaughter safe and in her routine. 

Here's an exercise for you.

When we judge our children or our partner, parent or parents-in-law, take a moment to consider how we may be doing this very thing as  well. There's an NLP pre-supposition that goes 

'If you spot it, you've got it'. 

The reason we notice it (the behaviour) in others is because it is familiar to us, it is also our pattern. 

Judy Bartkowiak is an NLP and EFT Practitioner, coach, trainer and author. If you feel she could help you with an issue you're currently struggling with, get in touch. You can read about the NLP Presuppositions in 'NLP Workbook' and 'Be a happier parent with NLP'. 
​

Do you ever have what might seem like an over-reaction when someone says or does something? From apparently nowhere you feel it in your solar plexus, your stomach, your chest or somewhere deep with you? 

This is what we call 'being triggered'. You have been reminded of a core belief from early childhood that your subconscious created because your conscious mind could not compute it at the time. It could have stemmed from something that happened in your teen years but will nevertheless have originally been formed in the years 0-6. 

In this early years something happens that shocks us, we call it a UDIN. 
U - unexpected, the event took us by surprise
D - dramatic, it was eventful, overpowering and overwhelming for our younger self
I - isolating, no-one to talk to 
N - no strategy to deal with it

At that time, when that event happened, it was probably prompted by someone in authority such as a parent or teacher or guardian shouting at you or your territory being invaded (physically or emotionally) and because you were little, you felt isolated. You didn't have the cognitive skills to make sense of it so the feeling went into your subconscious, you had no strategy for making sense or meaning of it or finding a resolution. 

Your subconscious made it mean something, perhaps

• I'm not good enough
• I don't matter any more
• I'm on my own here
• the world is a dangerous place

This is called a core belief because it then runs through you as a core is at the centre of an apple or like the core of your body. It affects everything you do and is always with you ready to be triggered when you experience that feeling again. 

Two children can have an identical experience but for one it will be a UDIN and for the other it may not even be noticed. Similarly, the same event may imprint a negative core belief for one child and a positive one for another. 

For example, two brothers I know experienced a UDIN when they were aged 1 and 2yrs old. The older brother made it mean 'I can't trust anyone, I can't look after myself' and the younger one made it mean 'I don't need anyone, I'm enough on my own'. It's possible of course that being younger, he was likely to feel more confident as he had an older brother looking out for him. 

Matrix Reimprinting is a modality that enables the practitioner to help recreate that early memory in a safe and supportive environment. Even when children can't remember many of the details, the essential ones will be there. Sometimes starting with later key events and working back in time to earlier examples of the feeling, get us there. We call our younger self, our ECHO. 

Once we have the core belief and when it was first imprinted (and it can even be in utero) we can reimprint a different, more resourceful belief. This is possible because your younger self didn't have full knowledge or understanding of the experience so your older self can help it to understand that everyone was just making the best decision they knew how to make with their own knowledge at the time. 

Right now you may have some idea of what triggers you and hopefully having read this post, you will become more aware. Next time you get that deep negative feeling, instead of letting it take you over, say 
"Ah that's interesting. What is the meaning I am making of this event?" 
"When, earlier in my life did I have this experience ?" 

You can then question it as your older, wiser self and ask 
"Did it really mean that?"
"What other meaning could I now make of that?" 

Sometimes it helps to imagine you are looking at the early event as if you're watching the action of a film. This keeps you a bit disassociated (and reduces the emotional content) so you can be curious and look at other options. 

Find a new belief for that situation from your past and 'try it on for size'. Maybe the more resourceful belief is actually one you have in other areas of your life. Can you now find other examples of where that new belief might work well for you? 

If you'd like help with this process, get in touch using the contact form. This is work that can be done over Skype or Zoom. Ask for a free initial 30 minute chat. 

​According to The Buddha 'Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle and the life of the candle will not be shortened . Happiness never decreases by being shared'. 

In his book 'The five side effects of kindness' Dr David Hamilton explains that kindness makes us happier especially when we notice it by recording it. This makes us focus on being kind as an ongoing daily habit rather than a conscious choice. This in turn raises our self-esteem because we feel good about ourselves, we feel we have more value, more purpose. Dozens of small acts of kindness every day can make a huge difference. It also makes a difference to the people we are being kind to! Definitely this is a win:win. 

Kindness relieves depression and social anxiety because it produces serotonin and oxytocin which turns down activity in the amygdala , which is the area of the brain that processes fear and anxiety. Good ways to increase your oxytocin are hugging people and being kind to animals.  

Kindness slows the ageing process by increasing vagal tone which in turn reduces inflammation and blood pressure through producing oxytocin which increases nitric oxide which softens the walls of our arteries. 

It improves relationships because we are drawn to kind people so when we are kind, it spreads around us from person to person as the video above clearly shows. Kindness is contagious. Every act of kindness ripples out around us. 

I am co-author of the Jane and Jake chapter books and each story takes a quality or characteristic and through Jane and Jake's adventures in Awesome, child- readers learn how they can build self-esteem. There are parent and teacher guides so these stories can be used at school and at home to extend the learning - as well as enjoy the story!  

Extract from Jane and Jake's adventure.
Jane is furious. First, her art smock is deliberately splotched with pink paint. Then someone pours liquid on her beautiful painting that she is making for the school art fair. Jane suspects that Mia—an older, fifth-grade girl—and Mia’s friends are the culprits. Then, when Mia says horrible, stinging words about the gift Jane’s mom sent to Jane, Oracle whisks Jane and Jake to Awesome, where they discover the challenge that awaits them. To earn their Pink Pearls of Awesome Kindness they must find and return important items lost by their sea creature friends—including the special stinger of Jell-ee-o, a tiny sea jelly. But…how can Jane and Jake return a jellyfish’s stinger without getting hurt?

NLP is great for parents and children in that it works and it focuses on the positive. The tools are easy to explain even to very young children and fun to experiment with. Results are usually immediate and applicable to any part of your or their life whether at home, in the classroom, playground or in the workplace. If one tool doesn’t solve the problem then there are others which will resonate more or work better for you in that situation.
 
NLP is fun. We so often forget in our busy lives that your child’s map of the world is different from ours. The map is not the territory; your map is huge and encompasses worlds they are totally unaware of such as the workplace, your financial situation, relationships with friends and extended family, the political and economic environment you live in and the world you travel in. For them, the territory is smaller, more intense and they are more vulnerable because they are dependent on you for all that they need, love, support, encouragement, respect, security, food, education and practical necessities like toys and TV!
 
Using NLP thinking we are invited to enter their territory and enjoy it by ‘walking in their shoes’ listening and using their language and mannerisms to understand it. By doing this, we can communicate in a way that resonates with them from a close distance emotionally where we have good rapport. As you do this, you will capture much of their excitement and energy.  

The tools of NLP are simple to use and explain to children and fun to try out with them because they can see how they can change the meaning of the communication if they use different structures. You already have a bond with them so there is a trusting environment to experiment with new approaches together. They know you have their best interests at heart and by introducing them to another way of communicating whether verbally or non-verbally this will give them options they can call on whenever that situation arises again.
 
Children are great at playing make believe so getting them to adopt new ways of saying and doing things comes as second nature. They can visualise really well and understand metaphors – one thing representing something else. 

NLP is ecological in the sense that it respects the fact that we all have choices. Children have the choice whether to be angry or jealous or sad about something because we can help them use an NLP tool to reframe a situation so that it makes sense to them in their map. It gives children a measure of control over their lives so they can learn to communicate in a way that will bring them their desired outcome. This gives children the all important confidence they need in every area of their life. It gives them strategies for coping with people they find difficult whether they are peers or teachers; enhancing friendships and increasing motivation in work and sport. Children are fast learners and their patterns of behaviour are easier to change than adults whose habits are well entrenched. 

​Childhood should be a happy carefree time but we all know and possibly remember that it is not all sweetness and light. Children feel sad and angry, bully and get bullied in the playground, struggle with their classwork and exams, experience peer group pressure and have to deal with bereavement and changes at home that are beyond their control. The best skill we can pass on to them is surely self esteem, belief in themselves and their abilities and the skills to use this to achieve whatever they want in life?

If you learn the NLP tools and understand the concepts you can explain them to your children. More importantly, they will give you the confidence and self esteem to parent your children in a positive way avoiding conflict and stress. 

Self-esteem is the extent to which you feel you are OK, a valuable person in your own right.  It is a measure of the opinion you have of yourself in all respects; your physical appearance, how well you perform in your work and sport, whether you feel you are popular and get on with people you meet and how well things are going for you at home with your family. Only you are the judge of your self-esteem, no-one else can make it greater or smaller. When you lack self-esteem no amount of well-meaning flattery will change this feeling unless you believe it to be true for yourself.

Self-esteem is a feeling and it can change throughout the day, over the week, month and years. You may be someone who measures it visually by what you see and the images in your mind, what you say and how you say it or your inner voice or how you feel in yourself or what you do. However you measure it, self-esteem is not tangible, it is not a fact. You cannot weigh it or measure it and it cannot be proven yet it can affect your sense of well-being and your sense of who you are in the world.

You cannot measure anyone else’s self-esteem either in fact they may seem very successful and confident to you, yet may be feeling very different inside and have low self-esteem but be very experienced at hiding it from others.

Here are some of the feelings and thoughts you might experience when you feel low self-esteem.

 " I can't do this. I'm useless."

"Everyone else is better than me."

"No-one seems to listen to what I say."

"Why do people keep criticising me?"

"I'm just a ............."

 Here are some typical thoughts you may experience when you are feeling high self-esteem.

  "My views are important, people listen when I speak."

"I get on pretty well with most people."

"When I make a mistake, I don't mind admitting it."

"I think it's important to be yourself."

"I'm OK with how I look."

Exercise 1
Here are some questions to ask yourself and think about. You might find it helpful to give yourself a score out of ten for each sentence so you can look at them after you’ve read the book to see how you have changed.

Q1. How well do you take criticism?  
Q2. Do you feel valued by your colleagues or those you interact with daily?
Q3. How often do you say what you really think or do you just agree with the majority view?
Q4. Do you get what you want from your relationships?
Q5. Do you take it personally if someone doesn’t agree with you?
Q6. Are you envious of what others have and think they’re doing better than you?
Q7. Do you sometimes feel unloved?
Q8. Do you feel embarrassed about your appearance?
Q9. Do you sometimes feel like a victim?
Q10. Do you feel you’re not good enough?

This was taken from my book 'Self-Esteem Workbook'. If you'd like to receive the first chapter free, just sign up to my newsletter. 

"How well you learn, depends on the state you are in. How well you perform, depends on what state you are in. Whatever task you have to perform, whatever you want to learn, whatever outcome you want, ask yourself: ‘What state do I want to be in to make this easy?’” (Joseph O’Connor)

When we allow others to control our mood or state by how they talk to us, behave towards us or what they do to us, we hand away control of our life. We cannot control them, we can control our response to them. 

Make instead, a conscious decision as to what state of mind you need for each activity in your day. Managing your state is important for many reasons. At work we cannot function effectively if we are at the mercy of unpredictable mood swings; our colleagues wouldn’t know how to respond to us and we’d be unable to cope with pressure. It could certainly be a barrier to advancement. There are also serious mental and physical health consequences when we allow our emotional state to govern us. High blood pressure, risks of heart attacks, digestion problems and headaches as well as depression and anxiety can also result from the pressure of not being in control of our emotional state. Lastly, healthy relationships rely on the ability to control our emotional state so we can communicate well and express our feelings. 

“Leading starts with the ability to lead ourselves. To do this we need first and foremost to be able to manage our emotional state. If we feel irritation, guilt, anger, frustration, doubt or self-consciousness, the result will be less than we are capable of and is unlikely to be a win/win. In contrast, feelings of ease, confidence, forgiveness, acceptance, inspiration and amusement are states that are much more likely to lead to us giving of our best, whatever the context.” (Sue Knight)

Now let’s PLAY!
How would you like to have a play with your state?
In NLP we consider the mind and the body to be one. They directly influence each other and if you play a sport you will be very aware of this. Exercise is the best way to improve your mood as you change almost every part of your physiology and by focusing on the exercise and the external, you take your mind off the internal thoughts and feelings.
So let’s start with making a few changes to the outside and notice what that does inside. A quick and easy way of doing that is to write alongside each one a score of 1-10 for your happiness level.

1. Smile
2. Look up
3. Laugh
4. Frown
5. Look down
6. Sigh
7. Stand up
8. Jog on the spot

Now for the inside and again make a note alongside of how each changes the happiness level. Also notice though how your physiology also changes.

1. Think about something sad
2. Think about a happy moment
3. Think about when you did a great piece of work that you felt proud of
4. Think about when you were a child
5. Recall a sporty success

Have you discovered that by changing one you change the other? So now you know how to manage your state. You are responsible for your own state. Do not blame other people for how you choose to feel. It really is up to you. Some people use drugs and alcohol to change their state, or they buy themselves new things, phone friends hoping they will cheer them up but when you know how to change your own state you are in control. 

This extract was taken from Judy Bartkowiak's book 'Secrets of the NLP Masters'. 

​