Followers

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Jedi Mind Tricks for Kids


Photo Credit:Young Yoda
At the moment my parenting focus is on helping Ella to manage her negative emotions without repressing them, or letting them completely take her over.

So, if she’s scared of wolves in her bedroom at night we start talking about happy thoughts like our recent trip to Euro Disney.

If she can’t get the wolves out of her mind, we talk about how they are like dogs and how she can choose to make them her pets in her imagination: take them for walks, tickle their tummies.

I’m keen to encourage her to realise that she can control her thoughts, which in turn makes it possible for her to change the way she feels.

I think it’s one of the most valuable life skills I can teach her. Although I must confess, being quite a sensitive soul as I am at times, I am still learning that trick myself.

Master it I will...

7 comments:

BiG Bear said...

Do you think this trick will work with my overdraft?

PippaD said...

Hello! I left an award for you over at mine!

Coding Mamma (Tasha) said...

We are trying to get Rosemary to use words to express her emotions (which have been very strong recently) at the moment, which is going pretty well. But it's quite upsetting to be frequently told 'I'm very angry with you mummy.' 'I'm very disappointed with you mummy.' 'You are upsetting me mummy.' (At least she balances it out with lots of 'I love you so much, Mummy'!)

I love your creativity with the wolves. And so much better than 'Don't worry, it's just a dream.'

Anne (aka mum-e) said...

I've left you an award on my blog too. You are getting lots! Well done!

Nicola said...

I do the same thing with my boys age 3 and 5. I used to dismiss fears - I had read once about having a squirty bottle of green water to spray at imaginery scary things, which was a magic potion to kill off all nasties, but I never tried that method myself. Instead I try to assure the boys that there are many 'angels' (for want of a better word) that they might see and although they can wear different costumes, they are all there as friends to protect them while they sleep. It seems to be working so far.

Metropolitan Mum said...

The picture is to die for. I will try the mind tricks on myself.

PS: Tagged you over at mine.

Tim Atkinson said...

Wonderful idea. Must try it with worry-prone daughter!