The first thing to say is that all children are different. They have different personalities, develop at different rates and even have different styles of learning. There are no square-peg children that fit into square holes.
Training children may require different approaches for different children as you will know if you have more than one child.
Of course, most parents are not generally trained to train children so as parents you can get out of your depth when a child fails to learn good toileting habits, wetting and soiling themselves, even in bed.
Those habits can turn into a vicious circle with the child and the parent becoming more and more anxious, frustrated and afraid.
In treating children to establish good toilet habits I treat the families and will not see a child with only one carer (if care is shared). All parents must attend each session because it is a family problem not just the child’s problem.
All parents must support the treatment
The parents as well as the child will be given a treatment regime that I expect the parents to follow by the letter.
Research clearly shows us that one of the biggest causes of failure in child therapy is the failure of parents to follow treatment plans. In other words they sabotage the child’s therapy.
Children who do not develop good toilet habits are typically highly anxious. They live from a place of fear which can affect the whole of their daily life and can even continue into adulthood if the problems are not addressed and treated. I will emphasis you should not delay treatment.
Children are very good at hypnosis
Children react very well in hypnotherapy because they are so imaginative and have no shackles in their minds with all the constraints that adults put on themselves.
They are great visualisers because they spend a lot of their time playing and in their imaginations, so they can future pace new possible behaviours very well in their minds.
Everything to a young child is a story which means they naturally absorb themselves in new experiences like hypnosis.
They are also very susceptible to suggestion.
What children are not good at is routine which why I insist parents are part of the therapy to establish and maintain new routines for the child and new routines for the carers too.
We must not burden the child with being the problem but instead empower the family with being the solution.
Both parents and the child will have tasks and homework that they do daily between sessions to establish those good toilet habits.
I know it can be hard on you as parents at times but the work you do is an essential part of the therapy.
There may also be parts of the child’s life that is worrying or disturbing them that we may also have to address to lower their anxiety and stress levels.
Children don’t tell their parents everything; sometimes they may hide things or they simply don’t have the words to express what they may be dealing with.
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