How to Treat Behavioural Problems in Children

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Dr Tracie O’Keefe DCH is one of the most highly qualified and experienced clinical hypnotherapists practising in Australia today who has received worldwide recognition and praise for her research and development of clinical procedures.

Is your child having behavioural problems?

Are you at a loss what to do next to avoid medications?

Is every well-meaning person trying to give you advice?

Did you know with the correct help your child can change their behaviours fast?

All children have behaviours. That is life. Some of those behaviours are desirable and productive for those children and the people around them. Some of those behaviours are experimental – in other words they are trying them out for size and effectiveness.

Of course some of those experimental behaviours are attempts to push the boundaries of what they may be able to get away with before they get into trouble.

In some cases children have become unaware of the boundaries or what behaviours they have that are permissible and they become labelled as difficult children.

What are labelled undesirable behaviours, or behavioural problems are the ones that used to be experimental, did not work, but hung around anyway because the children’s little brains forget to extinguish those behaviours.

It is just like when someone forgets to take out the trash on dustbin day.

I do not like to pathologise children unnecessarily because they are just little people trying to get along the best they can, learning the rules of the road.

Photo is a model, for illustrative purposes only.

It’s an interesting fact isn’t it that children can learn faster than adults?

When you begin to pathologise children you run the danger that they may then begin to be involved in a self-fulfilling prophecy around that diagnosis.

So we come to what you might like for your child. I guess you want to help them extinguish those unwanted behaviours and experiment with some new, desirable behaviours.

While you may want the child to have specific desirable behaviours, all those little people want is to have behaviours that give them rewards. If the new behaviour gives them rewards they are generally happy to keep them.

So in therapy we always design new behaviours that will give the child an obvious reward, which is why I also see the parents at the same time, as I see the child, so the parents can learn how the child can learn.

It is a system of good behaviours equal good rewards through positive reinforcement. It is called Token Economy.

Did you know that behavioural economics is the fastest way to change your child’s behaviours?

Children just get it because it is like pocket money: if you are good, you get it; if not, you do not get the reward. Those rewards also have to be attractive to the child, not just the parent or carer.

As well as psychotherapy, I also use hypnotherapy with behavioural problems in children because it accelerates the modification of the behavioural process.

Those little brains are hungry for new thoughts and my job as a therapist and you as a parent or carer are to give them the opportunity to learn new, good thoughts.

Children are great in hypnotherapy as they have such wonderful and active imaginations and really enjoy finding ways to be in control of themselves.

They love trying new things and exploring their imagination, which is what they do naturally as they are playing.

What children also like doing is rehearsing things that they might need to do when they are older which is why they play house, school, nurses or racing car driver.

In hypnotherapy we help them rehearse good experiences inside their minds and that helps set down new neural pathways in the brain and new behaviours.

There are no naughty children – just carers and children with opportunities to learn and experience new behaviours and rewards.

Book your appointment with Dr Tracie O’Keefe DCH by calling 02 8021 6429.

Dr Tracie O’Keefe DCH, BHSc, ND, Clinical Hypnotherapist, Psychotherapist. Counsellor, PACFA registered Mental Health Professional and Naturopath in Sydney. You can get help by booking an appointment with me at the Australian Health & Education Centre.

DISCLAIMER:  *Many factors will be important in determining your actual results and no guarantees are made that you will achieve results similar to anyone else’s. The nature of therapy requires each person entering therapy to actively engage in the session and to carry out any additional recommendations outside the session, so results vary according to the individual.