Self-soothing skills: Resources for FIGT Conference participants
This list of resources was created in response to the warm response of conference participants who came to my talk and Q&A for this year’s FIGT Conference (Families in Global Transition).
You can check out the links below if you’d like to learn more about the Emotional Freedom Technique I demonstrated and discussed in the conference in terms of:
- the history/background to the EFT tapping technique, and all the people who thought of it and contributed to make it the effective stress management tool that it is today
- various sources of inspiration for ways you can introduce it to children:
- an example of how you can introduce it to children Grades 1-5, if you feel a little silly/weird saying the affirmations (you’ll notice the first example was done without any affirmations – just tapping…and it still worked!!)
- an example of how we introduced it to an online class of 11th graders for managing academic workload stress and anxiety
- 10 examples of how it’s been introduced to students from Pre-K and Primary School to PhD candidates in university by educators all over the world
- 18 examples of how you can create the affirmations and the set-up statements when designing your personalized tapping meditation
- three 10 minute recordings of a 90 EFT therapy sessions (the start, the traumatic memory processing, and the end) for overcoming study procrastination
- a summary of how I’ve used EFT in my private practice when working with students, parents and teachers who wanted to try EFT therapy for processing their stress blocks to thriving.
My advice for how best to introduce EFT tapping skills to kids in schools/in the home is to do so through what Ash Buchanan calls a Benefit Mindset:
Start by deciding on a timeline (e.g. 3 weeks? 2 months? 6 months?) when you will explore how doing EFT tapping to self-soothe can benefit YOU, and transforming your own stress levels/blocks. This experience, and the insights you will gain will allow you to figure out how you can introduce it to your family/kids/students most successfully. Because we can’t give to others when we have nothing left to give.
As parents, as educators, I believe we have to make our own emotional self-care habits a high priority so we can teach by example. Normalizing self-soothing stress management skills by being okay with being seen ‘looking weird/different’ by using strategies to self-regulate helps younger generations learn that we’re all human. We all get stressed and need to pause to self-regulate sometimes. And so we have more in common that they realize – despite our differences in age, cultural background etc.
It’s a beautiful way for us to reconnect with other people in an authentic and meaningful way, after so many years of feeling discombobulated or disconnection while living in the pandemic.
About the author
Eleni Vardaki supports parent, teacher, and student well-being. Her mission is to help bridge the gap between mainstream education and the wellbeing skills we need to thrive. She believes in doable, sustainable interventions for student wellbeing in school and family cultures that value student and community wellbeing.
