Dealing with a child's headaches and stomachaches

Charlotte Reznick, PhD Psychologist & Author, shares advice for parents on how to help your child's headaches and stomachaches by using their imagination to make the pain disappear
How To Help Your Child With Headaches And Stomachaches
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Dealing with a child's headaches and stomachaches

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Headaches are the most common pain that kids have, and stomachaches are kinda close behind. So, it happens so much for so many kids across the board. There is help right in their imagination. One of the ideas I use is ask three questions. This works really well most of the time, and the questions are: first, close your eyes, do your balloon breath, deep breathing, calm. Ask, what color is the headache or the stomachache, what shape is it, and how heavy is it. And then you do some more deep breaths in between, and you sort of do a round, and when you're working with your child, whatever they say, accept. Good, fine. It could be black or red or sharp and very heavy. That's fine. And then you ask the questions again and do some more breathing and again, and what happens is within three to five minutes, usually, the color gets lighter so it goes often from black or dark red, and the shape changes from sharp to rounder, and it gets smaller and smaller and the weight of it gets lighter. So it might start out at a ton and then go down to 10 pounds to 1 pound to no pounds. And it's very amazing what you could do also is you could use your loving energy and even put your hand about six inches from the headache or the stomachache and ask your child to just breathe out the rest of the pain through your hand, and it'll disappear. And that helps also to make it lighter. And then you could ask if there's any more bits of pain left, you could ask to talk to the headache or stomachache and ask what you need to know or do to let go of the rest of the pain. And kids give amazing information. Like one boy, it was so simple, it was like rest more, don't stress out, and drink more water.

Charlotte Reznick, PhD Psychologist & Author, shares advice for parents on how to help your child's headaches and stomachaches by using their imagination to make the pain disappear

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Charlotte Reznick, PhD

Psychologist & Author

Charlotte Reznick, PhD, is a child educational psychologist, a former UCLA Associate Clinical Professor of Psychology, and author of the Los Angeles Times bestselling book, The Power of Your Child's Imagination: How to Transform Stress and Anxiety into Joy and Success. Dr. Reznick is also creator of Imagery For Kids: Breakthrough for Learning, Creativity and Empowerment, a mindful, positive coping skills program, and writer/producer of several therapeutic relaxation CDs for children, teens and parents. In addition to her private practice, she is a frequent media consultant, and teaches workshops internationally on the healing power of children's imagination.

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