Emotional Processing for Children

Can adults use the coloring technique too?

The coloring technique can also be used with adults if they find it difficult to visualize or focus long enough to complete their sessions. The inverse goes for pre-teens. Some may prefer to use a more verbal form of processing but generally I use age 13 as the transition point for styles.

How do you process non-verbal children, including babies?

In the case of processing a child who is non-verbal but capable of coloring by themself, I can process them as I would any other child or adult using that technique.

For children who are not capable of coloring or speaking, I can utilize other available techniques to gather the necessary information to complete a process. See Amber’s experience with this adaptation, below:

Amber’s Experience

Amber called me up because her baby was having tummy issues and couldn’t sleep. He was a few months old at that point, but had been through a very intense birthing process so Amber wondered if it was possible to do a session on a child that wasn’t even old enough to talk. (Yep, it is!)

Through the process we were able to identify that although the birth was intense and may need to be addressed in the future, the timing of his tummy issues actually aligned with the start date of Amber going back to work. We found that her little baby boy knew mom would come running over to him if he was fussy. So he was actually emotionally creating more tummy issues in himself as a way of connecting with mom and feeling safe.

We cleared out all these worrisome emotions from her little baby boy, let him know that he is loved - even when mom has to work - and let him know that he was heard and that his needs would be taken care of even if he were perfectly healthy and happy.

A few days later I received this message from Amber, unsolicited:

In Amber’s Words…

"Hey Austi, I have to tell you the session we had on Saturday has made a huge difference for me and my son. Last night he slept for 8 hours and his tummy has settled down. And even my husband told me that he could see a big difference and said that I seemed a lot lighter too. He told me that I need to do these sessions on a regular basis ha! Thank you so much. Just wanted you to know it has made a really big difference for us and we appreciate it.” 

- Amber D