This fall, I had the chance to work with a delightful 11-year-old boy T. who was having some trouble with math. His parents and the school had tried a variety of ways to support him, and he had made great progress in all areas but math. The parents asked me to see what I could do to support him using EFT.
We spent only an hour together. That was it. I wasn’t sure what to expect. We had some reduction in SUDS for everything we tapped on but I wasn’t feeling overly optimistic. Kids are much different to work with and I don’t do much work with kids.
I got a “B”!
Imagine our shared delight when I checked in with him the following week and heard that he’d gotten a B on that math test that week. He was grinning and delighted and his mother reported the whole week had gone well with his homework.
All from an hour of EFT informed by my work with Brain Gym and Vimala Rodger’s system of handwriting.
What did we tap on?
Well, some of the usual stuff like:
- I don’t like math but it’s not going away. (This sentence caused him to laugh with delight and really seemed to help.)
- My teacher is unfair.
- My parents got mad at me. (This was the most vulnerable part of the tapping and only happened after addressing the other aspects.)
Then we turned to the actual math that was causing him trouble. I had him write each number from zero to nine and see which number made him nervous in the tummy.
Writing crosses different midlines that can cause tension in our system
Try it yourself. Write a circle slowly and notice if your stomach clenches at any of the crossing of the midlines. It’s more common than you might expect.
For each number that caused him to feel nervous writing it, we then tapped on the feeling. We included the gamut procedure for obvious reasons.
- I feel funny in my tummy writing this zero.
- I feel funny in my tummy writing this one.
and so on. I also showed him how to write the numbers using Vimala’s suggestions.
A month later.
I ran into his mother at the store a month later and she reported that he continued to be doing well in many different areas including reading, handwriting and math.
Practitioner lessons
Ask for help
Since I don’t work with kids much, I asked for help from some colleagues. I got lots of ideas that helped me feel more confident.
Trust the tool
2. I trusted the tool of EFT and just followed T.’s energy in what to tap on. I didn’t know what was causing him problems. So I went in with a beginner’s mind but also trusted the tool to work.
Use everything you know
I brought in knowledge from other areas of my life to the work. The unique combination of my studies in how writing affects our brain and vice versa was a bonus in our work together. I also have fellow moms who have visual learners who had given me some ideas.
Everything helps
M. Scott Peck once wrote “everything is over-determined”. I think he means that there are many paths and causes that led to one solution. I don’t know what was the exact thing that helped T. But somehow the combination of the tools, knowledge and parental intuition brought together the resources so that this delightful young man got relief. Doesn’t get much better than that!
