Using EFT with your own children can be a most rewarding experience. It can also be extremely frustrating. Here are a couple of things I have learned from using EFT with my own children.

You need to learn EFT well and do it on yourself first. If it isn't working, I would suggest this is the first place you should look, particularly with younger children. They tend to be intimately tied to your own emotional state to determine how they are going to feel. Remember, emotions get transferred between people when we interact, and children are often like tuning forks for our emotional states...

Case in point. One night my son Joshua, age 6 at the time, was frightened to go into his room alone telling me he was scared there might be ghosts in there. After explaining that there were no ghosts, and that his light was still on - traditional linear parental logic - he still refused. I told him I would do "the tapping" on this for him to help him to be less afraid. He replied that the tapping would not work (I've found the Apex phenomena is rife even with young children!). I have tended to ignore such protests in the past as he has had excellent results from EFT even while protesting, "this won't work". I proceeded to rub on his sore spot and say, "Even though you're scared of ghosts, you're still a good kid." Following several rounds and no reduction in fear I, in my frustration, implemented plan B: Exposure treatment - "Feel the fear and do it anyway kid"!

What followed was a very upset little boy who went to his room under extreme sufferance, which was followed by another performance when going to the bathroom to brush his teeth, and still more crying and upset over going to the toilet. Following this, and with me feeling like a total chump for forcing him to suffer so, I took a moment out to think and do some tapping on myself. Then, having produced a little necessary distance, I went and sat down on the bed with him and started to talk about what was scaring him.

As I was now no longer anxious about his anxiety (or as frustrated with it), I found I was available to listen to him more fully - and target the treatment towards his specific fears - and he was surprisingly more receptive to the EFT as well. He told me about a segment in a TV program with an airship full of ghosts. Not only the images but also what was said on the program had upset him. I asked if he would be able to focus on that while we did the tapping and he agreed. As he did so, I was able to realise that the slight distance I now had was crucial to getting this to work for him. I needed to be free of my own negative emotional states ABOUT his problem, in order to work with him ON his problem. Prior to this my emotions were clouding my responsivity - and even being transferred to him, short-circuiting our work together.

My advice to other parents and to therapists: Always always, always tap on yourself. I have experienced numerous situations where this has made all the difference.