Does your child get anxious easily or stressed out? Do you have a sensitive child who is more emotional and picks up on feelings more intensely? Does your child react quickly to issues going on in the household?
If you answered yes to these questions, you may have an “empathic” child. No, don’t worry! This is not another label to stress you out; nor is it a negative thing. It’s actually quite a gift once you learn how to use it. Working in the field of energy healing, we come across many empathic children (and adults!) who simply don’t know how to cope with the influx of emotional energy coming their way and find themselves continually anxious. This can also lead to depression if unchecked.
What is an empath and how can I understand my child’s state of mind better?
Being an empath means you have super-charged kinesthetic abilities; you FEEL emotions much more strongly and have a heightened sense of intuitive energy. It’s a gift in that you can pick up on situations quickly and understand subtle clues. If your child is empathic, most likely they know when you are stressed and sad and want to share/empathise with you. They will want to heal your stress (beautiful really!) and can therefore accidentally “take on the stress” from yourself or others. Empathic children are less grounded and more ‘up in their head space’, hence they tend to get stressed and anxious a lot quicker than other kids. If you think about all of the challenges people at school and in day to day life have, and you see these stresses beaming out like a radio wave…. your empathic child is like a receiver picking them all up and holding them in. Usually the result is a physical ailment like anxiety, depression (feeling heavy), tight chested, asthma (common one!), bronchitis and allergies to food.
Top 5 things a parent can do to help an anxious or stressed child?
Coping with stressed children can be tricky if you don’t understand why they are feeling anxious or stressed. Knowing your little one is just reacting to the world around them (and anything stressful going on in the family), is actually quite relieving because you can do something about it. You’re your anxious child calm down and feel happier in their daily life.
1. Earthing regularly. Earthing is a simple physical process of anchoring the human body into the earth so they feel heavier and present in their bodies. These decreases anxiety in children and hence stress levels. Go outside into nature or to a park, ensure your child has their shoes off and get them to spend 15 minutes lying, running and playing on the earth. It is PROVEN to relax and de-stress people as the earth has electromagnetic energy that pulses through our feet and reconnects us to stronger calming natural energy. Read the book “Earthing” by Clint Ober or look into getting an earthing sheet for your child’s bed to give them a super charge whilst they sleep.
2. Energy Clearing. If you remember that emotions are like radio waves and that stress can linger in the air and become stuck, then you can see why clearing the energy out is important for empathic children. I like to use white sage (herb to burn and smoke) for clearing the room and whilst doing this set positive intentions like “I invite happy, positive feelings into the house/room; I let go of stress and heaviness”. It’s amazing the effects this has on the mood of the house or person. You can also try the sieve technique. Ask your child to visualise a sieve or net combing their body and removing all of the dirty grit out of their body as it moves up and out over their head (start at feet). Do it with them every few days or when they feel stressed. Try doing it twice, using a finer net the second time to capture any additional bits.
3. Breathing & Meditation. We all know that breath is the element for the heart chakra (energy) point. It’s also been proven by science that breathing more deeply has a calming effect on the body. Try incorporating 10 deep breaths into their daily routine to help create a calmer, relaxed child. Ask them to visualise breathing in a green light. The colour green is known for helping reduce anger and bring in peace. After all, it is the colour of nature!
4. Creative activities. Anxiety and stress is very much a LEFT brain thing. Left being logic, mental and rational. Using this part of the brain can create stress. If we swap to the other side of the brain – the RIGHT side, then we enter the territory of creativity, inner child and intuition. This is a huge stress release for children. Empaths especially need to use their hands, so try gardening (a great one cause it earths at same time), cooking, painting or training the dog to do tricks. Animals are super excellent for empathic kids because they are so unconditionally happy and pour in good vibes.
5. Minimise EMF. It’s a common issue in our day to day lives but an unavoidable one. Electro-magnetic frequencies are all around us with microwaves, Wi-Fi and mobile phones. Minimise use of mobile phones with children as the EMF’s disrupt energy and create stress in the body with positive charged ions (dirty electricity). You can radically minimise EMF by using products such as Geoclense this technology plugs into the home and converts positive ions to negative ions (mountains & oceans omit negative ions).
