The most challenging issue that a parent seems to faced is a child with a challenging behaviour. In boys, this will generally come in the form of fighting, anger and frustration, low levels of resilience, poor attendance at school and children feeling over burdened and under pressure whether that relates to issues in the home or at school, it may also come from both environments.

Sometimes the challenging behaviour may have risen due to the child’s lack of boundaries, structure and discipline at home. Another reason will come from that fact that some children have a skill gap. They have missed a developmental milestone somewhere along the way that would have given them the ability to have a flexible mindset, to problem solve and to tolerate frustrating circumstances.

After years of living with this limited emotional skill set, they have labelled themselves as ‘stupid’, ‘lazy’ and ‘trouble maker’. The effect of believing this about themselves and of others believing it about them too is that it has becomes a reality. If you give a dog a name, eventually it responds to it and this is the same principal for the labels they have given themselves and others have verified.

Our NLP4Kids Practitioners are focus this month on helping children to change their perception about themselves. We are focusing on getting any obstacles out of the way which prevent children from being flexible, tolerating frustrations and problem solving effectively.

The NLP4Kids Practitioner will be focus on doing a proactive session with a child to provide them with some NLP Techniques which will be focus on mindset and motivation. whilst not all sessions will have such a ‘quick fix’ approach, it is hoped that by offering some impressive, fast solutions, these children who meet with our practitioner will have gain rapport and will want to come to more sessions to benefit themselves.

The impact that their new skills will deliver will enable them to apply themselves better in school and to develop more positive relationships in the future. They are more likely to retain their place in education and have greater success as a result. This minimises the likelihood that they will become involved in troublesome activities that could lead to them taking a destructive road in life.

They do not lack the will to behave well, they lack the skill to behave well. This shift in our thinking will impact not just the child, but all those who engage with them. In overcoming their challenges and developing their missing skills they will also teach themselves that they can overcome problems, that they have grit and resilience. Their self esteem and self worth will evolve. It seems that some children do not create many opportunities for themselves to receive praise and develop self esteem. In creating those new positive opportunities for themselves their overall mental health will improve. They will have a greater investment in themselves and will care more for themselves, meaning that they will live in healthy and positive ways to keep them from danger and harm.

In developing their missing skills, they will have to expand less effort to behave well. Those who already behave well do not have to try to make it happen, it comes naturally to them and yet they are praised for it. Those who lack the skills to behave well receive little praise for their efforts to do so. In acknowledging how much harder they have to work shows them that their efforts are valued. This will encourage them to persist in pushing themselves to do their best and will make their minds more robust to difficulties in the future.