Student and Therapist Newsletter Archive
   - Children

+ Treating toddlers. - May 2006

+ Do the issues of the parent affect the treatment of the children? - October 05

***QUESTION***
hi john,
I am seeking some advice on the art of treating a child that wants to run around or out of the room!
So far I have tried distraction, sitting back, treating without touch. I get some degree of good contact but I need to do some cranial vault work and I am finding it challenging!

thanks
Lynne Kershaw
Brisbane

>>>MY COMMENTS:

Ah yes, it reminds me of my halcyon childhood days in Dublin, when I'd call out to my Mother. 'Ma, why do I keep walking around in circles?' and she would reply, 'Shut up or I'll nail you other foot to the floor.'

With a two year old, one way you can approach it is to have the child sit on the treatment table facing Mum or Dad who would have a book or a toy or something like that.

You sit behind the child and very gently take up a contact on the lumbar spine or thoracic spine. As you get into the treatment the child may start to become sleepy.

If this starts to happen it's a natural progression to have them lie down. As the child lies down they may become a bit distressed so it's important to have Mum stand up as the child lies down. That way the child can always see Mum and is not so aware of you.

Another approach that you can take is to get down on the floor and start to play with the child's toys. You play with the toys with one hand and with the other hand you are slowly contacting the child.

The most elegant version of this I've heard of was from Al Pelowski. He bought an expensive dolls house. Before he even begin to try and contact the child he would go over to the dolls house and tip the contents on the floor.

He would then sit in front of it and start putting the furniture back into the house but in the wrong places. The bed in the kitchen, the dining table in the loft and so on. The child would be intrigued by this silly adult and almost elbowing him about of the way, would start putting the furniture in the right places. This would usually give Al enough time to contact the child and get some work done.

Bear in mind that the contact time you get with most toddlers is very different to adults. With adults they will generally lie on the table and stay still. With toddlers, you have the intention that you'd like to work on a particular thing, you take up a contact, the child moves, you take up a contact again, the child moves again, you take up a contact again, and so on until you feel that what you are trying to do has eased.

It can feel like you're not getting anywhere and it can feel frustrating because of the continual disruption to your contact but it does have the required effect.

If you're treating a baby and it's disturbed by your contact, you can have the mother feed the baby. That can be breast or bottle. With some babies it may be easier if they can't see you, in which case you sit behind them as they feed and contact them at the head first.

The main thing you use to help a child to settle down is your intention. Let me just be clear here about intention, it's not a Jedi mind trick or some laser beam you direct at your unwitting patient.

You don't will the child into submission. Use your intention to create an atmosphere of clam in the room.

Often the child will become distressed because it's picking up on Mum or Dad's distress. The two will bounce off each other and the dynamic can escalate. You can stop this by infusing the room with an atmosphere of calm.

Create an envelope around the child with your intention. Think of this envelope as being like a vacuum. A vacuum in which it is very difficult for restrictions not to release in. It's almost like you remove the gravity that helps keep the restrictions in place. Your intention is focused on creating an environment into which the child will want to release.

This is very different to the focused laser beam idea that it's so easy to get when we talk about intention.

And finally, if a child wants to run out of the room you can't rule out the possibility that they don't want to be treated. To get an idea of whether this is the case you need to assess the family dynamic in the context of what the child is being brought to see you for. Sometimes children need their symptoms for protection.

Top

***QUESTION***
Hello John,
I am treating a 3 year old boy - Toby, for behavioural problems. He is responding well. I see noticeable changes in him and I can feel him releasing energy cysts in each treatment.

The problem is his mother says he has not changed at all. She just won't admit he has made any progress.
I am starting to think that she has something wrong with her. I Think SHE needs treatment.
I don't think Toby is going to advance until she sheds some of her baggage.

Is that right or am I just making excuses for my own inadequacies?

Any thoughts would be helpful.

Kind regards.
P.M. Perth.

>>>MY COMMENTS:

I have found that if parents are reluctant to notice changes in their child it's because they are afraid of getting their hopes up.
They want their child to improve so much that they don't trust themselves anymore. They are afraid they are making it up and only seeing what they want to see.

USE A PATIENT DIARY
To help parents focus on what IS changing, I use a patient diary. Which, by the way, works just as well on adult patients who have difficulty recognising their improvements.

Here's how it works. At the first session you get the parents to list the child's symptoms and get them to give each symptom a rating between 0 and 10. 0 is perfect and 10 is the worst it's ever been.

Then ask the parents to record a new figure for each symptom at the end of each day. When they come back the following week they will have a record of the child's symptoms and how they changed for that week.

That helps to keep them focused on what is changing rather than on what is not changing.

CULTIVAE AND ENVIRONMENT OF CHANGE
With children who have been labelled 'difficult', a lot of your work is in helping the parents to see that the child is now in a position where they can CHANGE.

You need to help the parents and the child understand that the child's symptoms are caused by physical restrictions. For example a bone in the
child's head is compressing on their brain and that when it has released, there is a good chance that they may not have the symptoms anymore.

You've got to convey to the parents and the family that they need to drop old ways of relating to the child.

'Oh Toby doesn't like to eat with the rest of the family. That sets him RIGHT OFF. It's just the way he is.'

All those kind of opinions will need to be re-evaluated. You need to get the family as a collaborator in the treatment.

KEEP OFF TARGET.
It's also is important to point out to parents that the initial improvements in the child's condition may not be in the areas that they expect them to be.

I explain it to them in terms of a target. The bulls eye is the main symptom the parents want to change.

For example, when a child comes for treatment for Autism and are displaying classic Autistic tendencies, like unemotional, obsessive behaviour, it's really important to point out to the parents that the first indication of change may not be that the child will suddenly throw their arms around their parents.

More likely it will come in a peripheral way. The child may start singing or start building things or take an interest in something that isn't inanimate, like a pet.

INFORMING THE PARENTS
It also goes a long way towards greasing the wheels of change if you explain the process of cranio sacral therapy to parents as much as you
can.

Get across to them the length of time cranio sacral therapy takes to have effect. Sometimes with children, you can treat them two or even three times before the parents will start to notice an effect.

That may not seem like a long time on paper but it is two or three weeks that they have got to keep coming back for treatment, in the face of no apparent improvements.

Get the family involved at the beginning of the treatment program. Then if there is no apparent improvement for the first couple of weeks they will be more inclined to persevere.

Seem like a lot of work?

The difference between a child and an adult coming for treatment is an adult comes of their own accord and they have control over whether they come back or not.

With a child, the parents have that control and if the parents get the feeling that the treatment is not really helping they won't come back.

Having said all that. The ideal is treating the whole family. This is particularly so with learning difficulties or behavioural disorders.

As a child begins to change it will help the process enormously if everybody in the family can be NEW about that and allow them to change. A lot of families won't be new and they will still relate to the child as they where in the past.

In a way they will keep the child stuck in the pattern long after the cause of the pattern is gone.

For example, if a child is having big tantrums as a result of a compressed parietal and you help the parietal to release. The cause of the tantrums will be gone. But the child may still have tantrums because that's what is expected of them. There is a space within the family that expects them to have tantrums.

Treating the whole family helps create a shared state of change in the family dynamic and in that is a window of opportunity for the changes that you have helped to facilitate in the child to become permanent

If you are not treating the whole family you will be treating the child in isolation. The other members of the family may not want things to change. Particularly older brothers and sisters.

If you can't treat the whole family you will be indirectly treating the family through the child. And that ain't easy. It's like trying to wallpaper the house through the letter box.

Don't be afraid to ask Toby's mother to come for treatment. Chose your moment well. Put it tactfully. Avoid implying that she is holding Toby's progress up.

She may really want to come for treatment but doesn't know how to make it happen.

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