People find hypnosis and suggestion fascinating. They seem to be slightly mystical and unreal, yet are well accepted by the scientific world. Most people have witnessed these techniques, perhaps as part of a stage show, for getting help to cure a habit, or for relaxation.

The key elements of hypnosis are very familiar to us, the hypnotist uses some device to distract the mind (like watch the watch), the commanding tone ('you will feel nothing'), and the rhythmic, repetitious tone of speech. We also know about post-hypnotic suggestion, the ability to implant a command, which the unsuspecting person later carries out, often to his or her dismay, at a given signal. It all makes for good theatre, but also can be used as therapy in the hands of a qualified practitioner.

What most people don't realise, however, is that hypnosis is an everyday event. Whenever we use certain patterns of speech, we reach into the unconscious minds of our children and program them, even though we have no such intention.

Hypnosis does not required an altered state of mind, or trance, these concepts are rather old hat. The rather frightening truth is that the human mind can be programmed in normal waking life beneath the awareness of the person involved. Already in the UK, many sales and advertising people are being trained in the use of hypnotic methods embedded in normal business conversation, a chilling concept.

Fortunately for the general public hypnosis requires great skill to use in a manipulative way, and can be countered if the subject becomes aware of the process. Accidental hypnosis, though, is so much part of everyday life that parents without realising it implant messages in their child's mind, and these messages, unless strongly contradicted, will echo on for a lifetime.

Hypnotised Without Knowing It
Dr Milton Erikson who was recognised as one of the world’s foremost experts in the field of hypnotherapy before his death, was asked to treat a man who was dying from cancer and was in extreme pain. The man didn’t want to be treated with hypnosis, but he was not being helped by any type of painkillers. Erikson went to talk to him one day about his hobby of growing tomatoes.

A careful listener could have detected the unusual rhythm in Erikson's speech and the stressing of odd phrases, like 'deep down' (in-the soil), growing 'good and strong', 'easy' (to pick), 'warm and loose' (in the glasshouse). Also, the observer could have noted that Erikson's face and posture changed very slightly as he spoke those key phrases. The man in question simply thought that it was a pleasant conversation. He died five days later, as expected, but he had been pain free since Erikson’s visit.
 
You Messages
A growing child's mind is naturally full of questions. The greatest of these are, 'Who am I?', 'What kind of person am I?', 'Where do I fit in?'. These are the questions of self-definition, or identity, upon which we base our lives as adults, and from which we make all our key decisions. Because of this a child's mind is remarkably affected by statements, which begin with the words, 'You are'.

Whether the message is 'You are so lazy' or 'You're a great kid', these statements from the important 'big' people will go deeply and firmly into the child's unconsciousness. In the work that I do I’ve heard so many adults, overcome by a life crisis, recalling what they were told as a child: 'I'm useless, I know I am'.

Psychologists, like many professional groups, tend to complicate things, and call these statements 'attributions'. These attributions crop up again and again in adult life.

'Why don't you apply for that promotion?' 'No, I'm not good enough.'

'But he's just like your last husband. Why did you marry him!' 'Well, I'm stupid, I don’t know any better I suppose.'
'Why do you let them push you around like that?' 'I don’t know, but that's the story of my life.'

These words -'not good enough', 'I’m stupid', did not come out of the blue. They are recorded in people's brains because they were said to them at an age when they were unable to question their truthfulness. 'But surely,' I can hear you saying, 'children must disagree with the "you" messages they are given?' Certainly children think about the things that are said to them, checking for accuracy. But they may have no comparisons. At times we are all lazy, selfish, untidy, stupid, forgetful, mischievous, and so on. The preacher in the old time church was on a sure thing when he thundered out, 'You have sinned!' everyone had!

'Adults know everything; they can even read your mind.' Such are the thoughts of a child. So when a child is told 'You're clumsy', they become nervous, and is clumsy. The child told 'You're a pest' feels the rejection, becomes desperate for reassurance and so does pester. The child told 'You're an idiot' may violently disagree on the outside, but inside can only sadly agree. You're the adult, so you must be right.

'You' messages work at both the conscious and unconscious levels. In my work I’ve often asked children to describe themselves, and they will say things like 'I'm a bad kid', 'I'm a nuisance'. Others, though, will show evidence of confusion 'Mum and Dad say they love me, but I don't think they do'. Consciously they hear the words, but unconsciously they hear/see/smell the feeling behind the words.

It's all in the way we say it. We can choose to say to children, 'I'm angry right now and I want you to tidy up your toys NOW!' and have no fears about lasting effects. If we say, 'You lazy little brat, why don't you ever do what you're told?' and repeat this kind of message whenever conflict occurs, then the result can be devastating for the child, who will carry it in their unconscious for a life time.

As an adult don't pretend to be happy or loving when you aren't feeling that way it's confusing and can make children become evasive and in time quite disturbed. We can be honest about our feelings, without putting children down. They can handle 'I'm really tired today', or 'Right now I'm too angry, especially if this matches what they have sensed all along. It helps them realise that you are human too, which is the healthy option to take here.

While giving a talk a while back I asked if people would call out the 'you' messages they remembered hearing as children. I wrote them on a white board and these are some of the examples:

you’re lazy, clumsy, stupid
a nuisance,
 just a girl,
too young to understand
selfish, dump
a pest,
dirty,
thoughtless, inconsiderate
always late,
 greedy,
bad tempered, brainless noisy
gutless,
a worry, crazy
 making your mother sick,
ugly,
 plain, immature
just like your father,

These examples came in little rushes at first, as people's memories were triggered, but by the end of the session the white board was covered and the room was almost in a state of chaos. The sense of relief and release was very evident in the large hall as people spoke aloud the words that had hurt them so long ago.

Very few people felt their parents had been deliberately destructive or malicious it was simply that this was the way children were corrected. 'Tell them they're bad and that makes them good!' This is a example of the Law of opposites, which our child rearing was based upon (Interestingly so is orthodox medicine) Those were the Dark Ages of child-rearing. Fortunately we're beginning to escape, however not too quickly!

Your mind remembers everything that ever happened to you
In the 1950s people with epilepsy had a bad time because the medications we now use had not been developed. A man called Penfield found that an operation could be used to help the more severe cases. By making small cuts on the surface of a person's brain, he could sometimes reduce or even halt the 'electrical storms', which cause epileptic seizures.
 
The interesting part and horrible part is that the patients were required, for safety reasons, to be conscious, and the operation was done under only a local anaesthetic. The surgeon removed a small piece of skull, made the cuts and then put back the piece and sewed up the skin.

There were some astonishing side effects, during the operation the doctor used a fine probe, made tiny contacts with the surface of the brain, the patient would suddenly have vivid recollections;- watching Gone with the Wind years earlier, complete with the smell of cheap perfume in the cinema and the beehive hairstyle of the person in front! When the doctor moved the probe to another spot, the person would see before him his fourth birthday party -even though he was wide awake and sitting in the operating chair. It was the same with every patient they did this procedure on, the memories differ from patient to patient.

Subsequent research has backed up this remarkable discovery: that everything every sight, sound and spoken word is stored in our brain. It is often difficult to remember but nevertheless it is there, having its effect. On the wrinkled surface of our brain our life is recorded in its entirety!

Unconscious hearing is a phenomenon that you've almost certainly experienced. You've been at a party or a meeting, listening to someone near you. The room is buzzing with people talking and perhaps music, too. Suddenly, from a conversation clear across the room, you hear someone say your name, or the name of a friend, or something that concerns you. 'uh!' you think, 'what are they saying about me?'

How does this happen? We have discovered from research that there are two parts to your hearing: firstly, what your ears actually pick up; and secondly, what you pay conscious attention to. Although you are unaware of it, your brilliant hearing system is filtering every conversation within range in the room and, if a key word or phrase occurs, the switchboard department in your brain 'puts it through' to conscious attention. You certainly couldn't listen to all that was being said at one time but, nonetheless, a primitive filter is scanning it for important messages. We know this from many experiments and also from the fact that unaware hypnosis people can recall things that they didn't consciously notice at the time!
 
It’s Amazing
Late one night a petrol tanker runs out of control, careers down- hill and smashes through the front wall of a house. When rescuers enter the house they are amazed to find a young mother sleeping heavily, undisturbed by the crash. As they stand there, not knowing what to do, a baby begins to cry in the back room. The mother instantly awakes. 'Wha...what's going on?' The filter in her hearing system works on as she sleeps but is checking for only one thing -the baby -and only this sound is 'put through' to her mind.

So, think of all the things that are said about children when they are supposedly not listening. Then remember their acute listening powers (a sweet wrapper at 50 yards!). We may well include the time when they are asleep for there is clear evidence that sounds and speech are taken in even as a person dreams and sleeps.

Also, there is that obvious time when a child has not yet learnt (or decided to let you know) that it can speak. The baby, for months before it speaks much, can follow much of what is intended, if not every word.

It amazes me how many parents, who have been fighting bitterly for years or are desperately unhappy for some reason, say 'Of course, the kids know nothing about it'. Children, in fact, know almost everything about everything. They may oblige you by keeping it to themselves or only show it indirectly by bedwetting or trying to murder their siblings, but they know. So, if you talk about your children, be sure you are saying what you really want to say. This, too, is a direct channel to their minds. Why not start to use this channel to boost them by saying what you genuinely like and appreciate to others while they're in earshot? This is especially useful at ages/stages when direct praise is embarrassing to them. 

Hearing and healing
While working as a nurse I’ve had quite a few experiences with people we thought were asleep under general anesthetics or in a coma waking up and reporting that they had heard different conversations that had gone on around them at the time. As a Senior Sister within an Intensive Care Environment I would always encourage friends and family to talk and read to anyone who was on life support knowing that hearing is the last sense to go.

I had one personal experience of this when a close family friend fell when getting off a bus and hit her head on a pavement. Without going into too much detail she ended up having surgery and following surgery was in an intensive care unit on a life support machine. Her family was by her bed most of the time and I visited on a daily basis while she was so critically ill. I would go in and read the paper, talk about what was happening in my life and what we would do when she woke up. As I talked I would tell her to imagine that every cell in her body was being re-vitalised by the sound of my voice and that when she could breath on her own she would wake up. She woke up several weeks later, when she was asked later what she remembered she said “Pennie’s voice, it was like a life line”. 

Anchoring
Scientists have realised that a message goes most deeply into a person's mind if it, is accompanied by other signals that reinforce it. This is called anchoring.

If someone says to you, 'You're a pest!' you would probably feel rather put out. If they says it with a frown and a loud voice, this would be worse. If they says it very loudly, moves towards you whilst making menacing movements and appears somewhat out of control, then you’d be scared and gives it an emotional charge. Not knowing how to deal with or acknowledge this feeling you would suppress it.

If they happen to be three times larger than you and are one of your family, on whom your well-being depends, you will probably remember the incident for the rest of your life.

Modern day men and women, especially those of us of Anglo-Saxon descent, tend to be constrained in our day to day life. We do not act or speak with very much passion or force. It's not that we are low key and relaxed, just more controlled and bottled up. We tend to keep our good and bad feelings to ourselves and, when things go badly, we try to carry the burden without giving any outward signs.

Consequently, when we finally do blow up or break down, we often surprise ourselves and those around us. If the feeling being released is anger and frustration, then those around us may feel that we have lost control and are dangerous to them and we may agree!

Because of this, our children may live in a situation where day-to-day messages are fairly vague and indirect: 'Now don't do that, darling, come along', 'There's a good boy'. Both positive and negative messages are casual and not great in their impact.

Then, one day, when life has really overloaded Mum or Dad, there comes a powerful outburst, 'You little brat, I wish you'd shut up', anchored with wild eyes, sudden, close proximity, never before-heard volume and a sense of quivering lack of control that is quite unforgettable. The message is inescapable, although untrue: this is what Mum or Dad really thinks of me!

The words that overwrought parents choose at these times can be remarkably strong. It's not bad to get angry at or around children. On the contrary, children need to learn that one can be angry and discharge tension and be heard, in safety.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross says that real anger lasts 20 seconds and is mostly noise. The problem comes when the positive messages ('You are great', 'We love you', 'We'll look after you') are not equally strong or reliable. Often, although we feel these, we do not communicate them.
 
Almost every child is dearly loved, but many children do not know this fact; many adults will go to their death still believing that they were a nuisance and a disappointment to their parents. It is one of the most moving moments in family therapy to be able to clear away this misunderstanding.

At the times when a child's life goes shaky -when a new baby is brought home, when a marriage breaks up, when failure occurs at school, when there is no work for a hopeful teenager -it is important to give positive messages, anchored with a hand on a shoulder and a clear look in the eye: whatever happens, you are special and important to us. We know you're great.
 
So far we've talked about the unconscious programming of children to be unhappy adults. There are lots of direct ways too!

Most of us can remember being told things as a child which simply make no sense at all, phases like: pull your socks up young lady… if you don’t come to your senses soon…you’ll smile on the other side of your face!… I’ll teach you to make a fool of me!… and so on. It’s no wonder some people grow up to be a little confused

I was in a Doctor’s surgery recently where some parents had brought their toddlers for a group. While we were waiting to start, a lively and curious little boy started to pullout some toys from a shelf. His harassed looking mum told him 'If you touch that the nurse will cut your fingers off!' Now any of us can understand the motivation to say this kind of thing, when nothing else works, try terror! But with this kind of message coming thick and fast, what can a child conclude about life? It can only go two ways: either the world is a crazy and dangerous place, or else, it's no good listening to Mum, she talks a load of rubbish. Now there's the start of a well adjusted life. We've all done it!

We shouldn't have to explain everything to our children, or endlessly reason with them till we are blue in the face. 'Because I say so' is a good enough reason some of the time. But there is nothing ever to be gained by needlessly scaring them. 'When your father gets home...' 'You'll make me so sick I'll have to go away...' 'We'll put you into a home...' are the kinds of messages that harm and haunt even tough children. We are their main source of information early on, and later our credibility is put to the test (since they have or will have other source to compare us with)

Our job is to give them a realistic, even slightly rosy picture of the world, which they can build on as they go, and so become hardy and secure on the inside. When they encounter trickiness or dishonesty later in life, they will at least know that this isn’t completely the way of the world, that some people are trustworthy, and safe to be around, Mum and Dad included.

At this point, you could be guilty about the way that you speak to your own children. Please don't get these ideas out of perspective. There is a lot that can be done to overcome old programming whether your children are still little or even if they are adults, or maybe your that child or adult.

The first step is to begin understanding yourself, to know why put downs became part of your parenting in the first place. Almost every parent is guilty of unnecessary put-downs from time to time.

There are three main reasons for this.

1.You say what was said to you!
You weren't taught about parenting in school: you had to start from scratch when your children were born and work it out for yourself. But you did have one clear example to work from -your own parents.

I’m sure you’ve found yourself in a heated moment yelling out then thinking, 'Good grief, that's what my parents used to say to me and I hated it!' Those old tape recordings are your 'automatic pilot', how- ever, and it takes presence of mind and practice to react in ways you really prefer.

Some parents, of course, go to the other extreme. With painful memories of the way in which they were raised, they swear never to scold, hit or deprive their own children. The danger here is that they may overdo it, and their children suffer from a lack of control. It isn't easy, is it?

2.You just thought it was the right thing to do!
It was once thought that children were basically bad, and the thing to do was to tell them how bad they were. This would shame them into being better!

Perhaps you were brought up in this way. As a parent you simply hadn't thought about self-esteem or the need to help children gain confidence. If so, I hope that what you are reading has changed your mind. Now that you realise how put-downs damage children, I'm sure you'll be keen to stop using them.

When money is short, or you are overworked, lonely or bored, or because being at home isn't enough for you, then you are much more likely to be destructive in what you say to children.

3. You are down on your own reserves
The reasons for this are clear. When we are pressured in any way we build up a body tension, which needs discharging. It actually does feel, our own good to lash out at someone, in words or actions. 

Children suffer because they are easier to get angry with than your spouse, boss, landlord, or whomever. It's important to think it through: I feel so tense! Who am I really angry with?

The relief of lashing out is short-lived since the child is likely to behave even more badly as a result, but at the time it feels like a release.

If this happens, it is vitally important that you find a safe way to let off steam.

Tension can be dissipated in three ways:

• by vigorous action, such as hitting a mattress, doing some vigorous work, going for a brisk walk. This is no small matter -many a child's life has been saved by being shut in its bedroom while a distraught parent walks for miles as a means of calming down.
• by dissolving the tension through talking with a friend,finding affection from a partner (if you're fortunate enough to have one) or through some activity such as yoga, massage, reiki that releases tension out of your body.
• by getting outside help in the form of Breath4Life™ to help deal with suppressed emotions, which will free to enjoy your children

Eventually, as a parent, you must learn to care for yourself as much as for your children. You actually do more for your children by spending some time each day on your own (your health, your relaxation} than by being totally devoted to serving them.

So, that's the end of the bad news. It is possible to change, and many parents have told me that just hearing about these ideas at a meeting or on the radio has helped them immediately.

Already while you've been reading, your ideas have been changing. You'll find that, without even trying, your behaviour with your children will start to be easier and more positive. 

 

Leave a Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Comment *

Captcha; help us confirm you are human