This is the answer I gave on an e-mail by a fellow practitioner, who asked me the following question:

A recent opportunity has come whereby I am in a position to work with
children (some who may be hyperactive and with ADHD/ADD).
Have you found NLP techniques or EFT to be the better tool for working with this issue ( I realize that may depend on a lot of factors)?

I’ve always looked at attentional problems as mostly being neurological and less emotional. Although I do understand how limiting beliefs, and negative emotions may worsen the problem, I
guess I wonder whether EFT can help with attention specifically. e.g., can one tap to increase sustained attention?

My answer:

The field of children, hyperactivity and EFT/NLP is an amazing, wonderful, rich field, in which I am ever learning and discovering new possibilities and solutions to challenges!

At this moment in time, I work with a three step plan:

1. Diet
2. Tap: Every day 3 times on whatever comes up
3. Help kids to structure their hours after and before school

1. Diet:
Eliminate sugar and food additives (sweeteners, food colorings, etc). Keep a food diary, to see if some foodstuff worsen the symptoms. Have a look at this video for an insight in food allergies and their possible effects on behaviour:
http://eft4add.com/symptoms-of-add-and-adhd-linked-to-allergies/
Most often, leaving out sugar and additives does the trick already. The kids are allowed one “sweet day” per week with a limited amount of sugar, but no additives or colorings etc.

2. Tapping:
The underlying emotions sometimes get mentioned, sometimes not. We tap on restlessnes, fear, anger etc; whatever the child feels at that moment. I teach the parents how to tap with the kids, often using a tapping stuffed animal (TappyBear for example) – the parents invent a metaphor for the problem the child is facing (e.g. fear for a math test) – and do a little role play with the bear having that problem, for example the bear will have fear of a roaring contest which is coming up. The kids then helps the bear to overcome his fear by tapping, and solves his own fear at the same time. This lessens gretly the reistance kids sometimes have when working with them, especially as a parent.

3. Structure
I tell the parents: “Support them like you would do a younger kid”. Make sure that as little as possible goes wrong, that way the child gets used to the feeling that everything is under control and fine – and he will put more and more effort in to feel that way, because it feels good. Help them with their homework, good notes are addictive

So, back to your question: I use a mixture of NLP, EFT and diet.
Attention problems are definitely neurological, as is pain too, for example, and EFT is very good at adressing neurological patterns which are not functional (anymore); and NLP obviously is too!

I hope I have been elaborate enough for you to take these ideas and try them out, if I can be helpful in any way I would love to hear it!

Warmest regards,

Charlotte

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