How to help your child be positive about learning

Children are naturally incredibly receptive. They are, if you like, in a trance most of the time as they are highly focused on one thing or another, hardly ever calmly taking in everything that is happening around them.

There is no need to hypnotise children – they are already there! They are constantly absorbing at a subconscious level. Every negative thought you have about them is conveyed to them, they are incredibly sensitive to your moods and to everything you say. In fact, you are constantly ‘hypnotising’ them, in the true sense! I mean that honestly. The work of a therapist is to de-hypnotise people so that they can get rid of all the negativity they have been surrounded with! As you get older, you can more easily learn to discern what you are taking in, but as a child you really don’t have any choice – you are in learning mode by design!

You can take advantage of this receptivity and help them by encouraging them and believing in them. For specific learning, here is an example of how it can work. Use a little story-telling …. (I will use ‘he’ instead of ‘he/she’ to make it easier).

Start off with a story about something he has learned in his life…
e.g .“When you were very little, and you tried to walk, you didn’t just get up and walk – you fell down a lot of times, but you always got up again and we were Soooo proud of you when you took your first step, and then your first few steps …. You have learned SO much in your life. And when you learned to talk… at first you only had a few words you could say, and then you learned more, and more, and you remembered them ALL. And now you have so many words that you can say that I can’t even count them! And you even learn new words every day too, don’t you?”

(some discussion is bound to follow. Make sure that you have anchored the state that he CAN learn things! – and you are anchoring them for yourself as well –reminding yourself that your child is normal, clever, capable of learning what he needs to learn in this life – remembering that every time you say something even slightly negative you are conveying to him that you think he can’t learn, that he has a problem. He WILL take his cue from you! YOUR attitude HAS to be one of assuring him that he will learn whatever he needs to, when he is ready and that he CAN if he wants to…. )

Okay, moving on then ….you can begin to talk about something that your child loves to do, that you know he feels proud of his achievement. e.g. “Can you remember how you learned all the names of the people on your computer game? Can you remember how good it felt to learn that? Can you feel how proud of yourself you are that you know that?”

(He may make comments about how he even sometimes forgets something about this – but you remind him that it is just like when he was learning to talk, or walk, he would sometimes not get it right, but of course he always does now, doesn’t he? He never forgets how to say “I’m hungry, Mum!” or “No, I don’t want to do that!” does he? – have a laugh together about how silly it would be if he forgot how to do certain things – go to the loo – brush his teeth, or if he forgot what he liked for breakfast! Or what if he forgot his name? Now wouldn’t that be silly? Of course he NEVER forgets the important things!! – you get the gist of the conversation…..)

So – getting back to how good he feels remembering something he DOES know and learn…. play a little game, make it real to him by asking him “Now …ok… can you feel how it feels to be really proud of yourself when you have learned something? Where do you feel it? Can you make that feeling really big, so that it fills up your whole chest and head? Your whole body? Feeling really good about yourself? … Good…do you remember how you were a bit impatient sometimes trying to learn ….(whatever)?”

(perhaps he might want to describe his impatience, how it felt at the time .. and then how he got it right … leading back to the good feeling. By now he will have the idea – and he will most probably describe – with your encouragement – other things that he learned, and that he sometimes forgets, and how he sometimes feels frustrated / impatient / as if it’s difficult, and then he remembers eventually!)

The real trick is to get him visualising and feeling how good it feels when he learns things, how good he feels when he does remember, so that he anchors the fact that he does learn, that sometimes it takes a while, but that it does go in and that he is, in fact, normal, clever, capable etc.

The LAST thing you want is for him to think in any way that he is less than what you expect, or that he has a problem, that he is different, or stupid! If he has those thoughts then he has been ‘hypnotised’ into believing them, and your job is to de-hypnotise him (and perhaps yourself, too)

Try not to fall into the trap of expecting your child to be like everybody else…