Module 1 of the pre-school parents’ course

NLP and the Presuppositions

- Basic concepts of NLP and the 10 beliefs of excellence and how they are relevant to parents of pre-school children

What exactly is NLP?

Do you find yourself wondering ‘why are they doing this?’ or ‘why are they so anxious’, ‘why do they get so angry’ and you ask them. They don’t know. They love you and want to help you by giving you an answer so they maybe give you what sounds like an answer that you’ll be satisfied with. But it will not help.

What happens is that there is a sequence of events.

1. Something happens such as a sibling taking something of theirs or mummy saying they can’t have something they want or it’s raining and they wanted to go outside to play. This is what we call an ‘external event’.

2. If your child is visual they will notice what they have seen. If they are auditory, they will pick up on what’s said and the tone, pitch and volume. A kinaesthetic child will be more attuned to their feelings and what was done. Children will have the ability to do all three but will have a preference. This makes some events mean more depending on their preference.

3. Your child then filters it according to their map of the world

- values about what is right or wrong, important or not important

- beliefs about the world they live in – basically home and school

- memories of when this happened before

4. They then create their own internal representation which is their version of the event.

This is the ‘neuro’ bit of Neuro Linguistic Programming. It’s everything that goes on ‘behind the scenes’ as it were. It’s what the mind conjures up based on the child’s ‘map’. This map is their own unique take on the event.

They will delete some bits of information, only see, hear or feel some parts or aspects of the event, a bit like one of those tests where they zoom in on a very small part of an object and you have to guess what the actual object is.

They will generalise as well, saying ‘that always happens to me’ or ‘she never listens’ , making a rule based on one piece of evidence.

They also distort, mindread and predict the future saying ‘I’ll fail’ or ‘this means she doesn’t love me’ or ‘I won’t know anyone’.

We now have an even more complex picture of the event and we are still only at the N of NLP!

So let’s move on to the L – linguistic.

This is what they say. So can you see that there’s a whole story before they even open their mouth to say something?

Let’s also remember the body language and physiology that you see before they speak. This is part of the communication too. Pre-school children do not have the language skills to access the thoughts and feelings they experience and reflect those in words that make sense in the moment to someone, you, whose map of the world will be completely different; based on your beliefs and values, experiences, memories etc.

How they respond becomes the next event and so the situation develops. This is then the P of programming which is about the patterns we repeat whether they bring us happiness or not.

NLP was developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler in the 70s when two university students decided to explore the secrets of success. What if they could ‘code’ it so that anyone using that code would achieve whatever they wanted. They called this aspect modelling. This is what makes NLP different from other similar modalities. The idea is that by applying the underlying belief – remember this is the very first often subconscious part of the N of NLP – you can achieve your best in whatever you’re doing. They then created some core beliefs of excellence which are general and can apply to anything we do. Amazingly, I find these beliefs just as effective today as they proved to be in the 1970s.

NLP Presuppositions

1. If you always do what you’ve always done, you will always get what you’ve always got

In my experience first time parents and new parents are less inclined to trust their instincts and common sense and keep persevering with behaviours that they have read or been told are desirable even when there is loads of evidence to the contrary.

Confidence tends to come with time and rather than persevere when you aren’t getting the results you want, consider doing something different!

Example – mum and child coming into room

So when something isn’t working, think about other options.

Exercise

Can you think of anything you find yourself doing the same way every time and yet not quite getting the result you want?

It doesn’t have to be about parenting because your pattern will be likely to be similar even if you’re thinking about your sport, work, hobby etc because we have a way of approaching things based on how we process, which we will cover in another module. Whatever you work with will give you learning which you can apply in parenting.

What would you like to get a different result with?

……………………………………………………….

How could you do that?

What could you try?

It can be hard to change a pattern even when it patently isn’t working! We get stuck in a rut. This is how we do this. Or we persevere because this way worked with child no 1 so it’s just a matter of time before it works with child no 2.

Not necessarily.

2. You cannot not communicate

Your little ones are completely dependent on you at this stage and their reptilian brain is set to pick up any signs of danger so anything that might spell ‘threat to survival’ such as being left alone, being hungry or sleep deprived, hurt or discomfort will trigger as much noise as it takes to get you there fast!

Your job is to make sure you are!

They will be watching your every move and facial expression, body language for signs that they are safe and loved.

Equally they will be communicating with you and it’s important to learn what they mean.

Remember they are your children and have picked up their communication cues from you so notice how they are communicating and ask yourself, when I look like this or sound like this, what might be the feeling behind it? The chances are that this is also the case for them.

With so many parents working at home, children will see you at the computer or on the phone and it’s very easy to say, “mummy/daddy is just working, I’ll be with you in a minute”.

What is this communicating?

- Working is more important than them

- Just working implies it isn’t actually that important which means they are even less important

- Working isn’t something that’s fun especially if you’ve said “I have to work now” implying you don’t want to. Maybe you don’t but at this age, beliefs are imprinted so think about the belief you’d like them to have about work.

Similarly, and this is a difficult one. What about being friendly?

Exercise

Can you set up a play shop or play park and act out what they will experience and how you’d like them to be in that situation?

You will of course need to explain what the rules are but beyond that, how can they still be friendly and kind?

3. There’s no failure only feedback

When things go pear-shaped, when you are feeling drained and like a complete failure – yes we’ve all been there, this is learning. It is not failure.

Stop.

Disassociate – this means imagining you are looking down on the situation like a CCTV camera, with no emotion, imagine they are not your children,

- What do you see

- Who is doing what

- And this is a problem for who?

Exercise

Which aspect of your parenting do you feel is not going as well as you’d like?

What could be better?

Now think about something that IS going well?

What do you do, what’s the structure, steps in that process?

What’s the underlying belief with this?

Now what if you could apply that belief to the area that you’d like to improve on.

NLP Modelling is about taking the belief of excellence from one area of your life and applying to where it is needed.

We can also use the feedback sandwich

Top layer - What went well overall e.g. the bed routine/ getting out of the door with everything remembered

Middle filling layer –

- How could it have been even better

- What could we do more of

- What could we do less of

Bottom layer – Remind ourselves that it’s all going well

Your children are at an age when they are watching and listening to everything you do. How you handle ‘failure’ is really important for them to learn. They will think they’ve failed loads of times at school when you aren’t around to reassure them. So it’s great to model it now.

Exercise

Decide how you want to model failure.

Here are some options but you will have plenty yourselves I know.

-silly mummy/daddy I got it wrong, never mind, let’s have another go

-I made a mistake, we all make mistakes sometimes, it’s how we learn isn’t it?

-well that didn’t go very well, let’s try a different way

How your turn………………..

4. The person with the most flexibility controls the system.

When we have only two options, to do something or not to do it, binary. We limit ourselves and therefore limit our control over the situation. However, the more options we have, the more control.

Exercise

Can you think of a situation where currently you feel a bit out of control?

What do you feel are your options right now?

Write each one on a piece of paper (separately) scrunch it up and throw it in a waste paper basket or tin.

What if there were more?

What other options are there?

Now when neither of you can think of any more, muddle them up and take it in turns to take one out and read it.

Discuss each one and then decide which order you will try them out.

This is a great exercise for children too even if you have to do the writing. It introduces them to the idea of choices. There are always more choices than they realise even if some of them might seem a bit unlikely to work, you never know, it just might be the one!

Flexibility includes

- What we do (which we’ve covered already)

- What we say

- How we say it

- What we pay attention to

- When we stay silent

- What words we use

- What we make something mean

Remember about the NLP Communication model?

Watch out for those

Generalisations – always/never/no-one/everyone/

Deletions – of context (comparisons like ‘better’) of detail (only noticing part of the story)

Distortions – future predictions (‘he/she’ll find this difficult/won’t understand’) assumptions (‘he/she’s doing this on purpose’)

Exercise

Values and Beliefs

List your values

Now list your beliefs about what is important in the life of each child right now.

Discuss what words or phrases you will use when marking out these beliefs.

Imagine each of your children has a filing cabinet in their head. Each folder in the filing cabinet is labelled with one of your family’s values.

The files that will go in each of these folders will contain evidence of a belief that upholds that value.

Example

Your folders may be labelled; kindness, perseverance, patience….

Your child gives you a hug when you look a bit tired. This is an example of kindness. You say “thank you darling, that was such a kind thing to do”.

This action is then stored in your child’s file that tell her that noticing when someone needs a hug and doing it is an example of kindness. So when someone says “I need you to be kind to……” they know what that means and also when they need a hug they mark this out themselves by saying “I need you to be kind today or I need a hug”

Emotional intelligence is all about recognising your emotional needs and being able to express them and understanding those of others.

5. We already have all the resources we need

That might sound a bit absurd when you have pre-school children but you are a very important resource that they are learning from every single day by watching you and hearing you even when they aren’t actively Iistening. They will still be hearing your tone and picking up on your mood even when you aren’t in the same room. They will instinctively pick up on who you like and who you tolerate even if they don’t realise this at a conscious level.

They will also be picking up on your fears and anxieties so if one of you is better with the dentist or doctor, hospitals, going to the supermarket it may be better for the person with the model of excellence takes the child to avoid any unnecessary beliefs being transferred subconsciously.

Apart from you both being resources, so too are they to each other. The older child will be watched and their model copied by the younger child so when they misbehave and get a lot of negative attention, the younger one may think this is desirable because they at this young age need attention. You can use this to model good behaviour by marking out what they’ve done well this works so much better than paying attention to what you don’t want.

Children have the ability to model and this is such an amazing resource. They will model you, each other, what they watch on TV and who they play with. This is how they learn. They will also learn from the stories you read to them and what you say although what you actually do will be more powerful.

I remember when ours were pre-school we wanted to encourage them to read so instead of telling them how important it was, we would talk about the books we were reading and make sure they saw us reading downstairs in the lounge rather than reading in bed where they couldn’t see us.

We also wanted them to eat a wide range of foods so we ate together even when we might have to mash up our food so they could still get the tastes. We involved them in talking about what we were going to cook and let them stir, mash and pick out vegetables in the supermarket. That’s because we love our food and love cooking and eating out so it was one of our values. Yours may well be different but I’m sure you get the idea. We did the same with sport as we both love tennis and skiing.

At this age, you are their model so everything you do and say is a resource they will be actively picking up. Quite a responsibility!

Exercise

Discussion

How are you modelling your values?

6. There’s a positive intention behind every behaviour

Your children love you. You know that. Yet just sometimes it can be hard to imagine what the positive intention might be behind a particular behaviour. Be curious.

As earlier, disassociate. If another child that you were not emotionally connected with, did this, what would you think? How would you react?

Exercise

Which behaviour are you curious about?

What could the positive intention be?

7. If you spot it , you’ve got it

Ha ha I love this one! Yes everything your child does is a reflection of you in some way. What you observe in them, you have it too. This is how you can recognise it. So whatever they do that you like – you have it too, they learnt this from watching you.

And yes, also the things you don’t like.

Exercise

What they do that you aren’t so keen on, ask yourself, how do I do that myself?

What is behind it when I do that?

What is the belief?

What is the need?

What is the fear?

These are our shadows.

Knowing this will help you to help them especially at an age when they don’t understand the feelings, needs and fears themselves.

8. The map is not the territory

How things seem to us, is not how they seem to our child. Their map is different and you are at the centre of it. Whereas we have much a much bigger more complex world map with work, activities, friends and the extended family, our children have us. They will have other people in their world but they will be nothing like as important as you, their parents. They are poor substitutes and whilst we choose the people who will interact with them and be of influence, they won’t be a replacement for you.

How they see their little world is their perception but it is also their fact. It is how it is.

I find using metaphors very helpful for working with small children. Animals are great.

“What animal are you right now?” is a good question. You will soon get to know what each one means for them.

You could also use My Moodstars which are yellow felt stars with different expressions to show happy, sad, sleepy and so on.

Colour too will help you understand their world and we will cover metaphor and colour in the art therapy module.

Exercise

Thinking back over these presuppositions, which do you think is the most helpful in the case of each child?

How will you apply the belief?

What changes will you make in terms of how you connect with them?

This is the end of Module 1

This is a course I deliver on Zoom so that you and your partner can take part together and record it to watch again. It is 90 minutes for you to focus on your parenting, learn new skills and techniques and have the focused attention of an experienced therapist to help guide you through issues you may be having.

The examples will be chosen to be relevant to the age of your child.

The cost is £150 per session and there are 6 sessions. You can pay per session and you do not need to do all the sessions.

If you'd like to know more about how to help your child using some of the skills and techniques I use when I'm working with children, then I would recommend this book. It is available in my bookshop of course, on Amazon and it's available as an ebook, paperback and audiobook.