First off, holy snappers! I just realized during this whole post I've been calling my DS10 - D
D10 and my DS6- D
D6! OOPS! So sorry for the newbie flub.
An update on D
S10. After the first 3 days of wanting to do EFT he all of a sudden didn't want to anymore... at the same time I also noticed a slip in behaviour and attitude. At the next session when the therapist asked if there was anything he wanted to tap on, he said no, he felt much better. Huh. Just like that. Closed door. I suppose I should find ways to work it in because I do feel like it helped, but you know... sometimes I just don't have the patience.
With DS6 the therapist let us borrow a "tappy bear", basically a teddy bear used as a surrogate that the child does EFT on. It's really been fun bonding time for the whole family at nite... DS10, DS6 and DD5.
This is how it's been working for us... After a group bedtime story I start animating Tappy, speaking in my best squeaky-but-cute-teddy-bear-voice, "I'm really happy to meet all of you but I'm really worried and scared being in this new house, can you help me feel better?" (The boys have only been home for a few months). Instantly DS6 goes to work tapping trying to make the bear feel better. Then DS10 wants to be the one to control everything and grabs the bear which irritates Tappy, and so now he's now growling that this makes him very angry and can someone please help him!? It makes everyone laugh, but it's really interesting to see the different reactions of the three kids. I definitely have two lil' kids with a lot of empathy and one older one who would really rather stir the pot. Just like real life.
For those of you who have porcupines with extra long quills, the Tappy bear is definitely something to look into, even though you aren't actually tapping on acupressure points on the child, it might be a good starting point.
Tonite Tappy bear is going to teach every kidlet's chosen teddy how to do EFT because he has to go back to the therapist. I'll sew on some little beads on the spots that need to be tapped, just like tappy bear. (I'm in Mexico, so shipping 3 tappy bears here could get expensive, but if you're interested in the original, here's some more info...
http://www.tappybear.com/blog/)
For you skeptics... I know the whole tapping on your head things seems bizarre... tapping on a stuffed animal even more so... Just know that it is still sort of weird to me... but at the very least I got some guilt, negativity and fear out of my own system with my solo sessions with the EFT therapist. Also for the kidlets, I think it's a window into their true feelings, I've seen some true emotion where there used to be a wall of aloofness. I do feel like it is based on scientific principles, I have seen some changes, and it is free, so I'll keep it as one of my tools in my tickle-trunk.
Thanks to Trublu for this great link... It's a really good intro to EFT.
http://www.eftuniverse.com/images/pdf_files/eftquickstart.pdf