Abdominal pain in children is something that is relatively common. 1 in 3 children under the age of 15 have been to the doctor at some time because they have had prolonged abdominal pain. Usually there is not much to it and a little comfort and mental support is enough to help your child get rid of abdominal pain.
Want to know what you can do, with and without hypnosis, to help your child get rid of abdominal pain? Then take a moment to read this blog.
Cause of abdominal pain in children
To stop your child's abdominal pain, it is important to know why your child is suffering from abdominal pain. There are several possible causes
- Stress
- Anxiety
- Nutrition/change of nutrition
- Constipation
- An illness, such as suffering from inflammation or the first symptoms of a gut condition.
Because you want your child to be healthy, if your abdominal pain lasts longer than 3 hours and your child does not sit up or move in weird positions, you can call a doctor. In this case, there may be more going on than just stress or anxiety.
Stress in a child with abdominal pain
Stress is something that has its effect on your body. To find out if your child is suffering from stress, you can ask about how life is going. Is everything going well with friends, how is school going and how does he/she feel things are going at home?
By answering, you can find out if things in your child's life are actually not going the way they want, and you can also find out if this might be the reason for stomach pain.
For example, a friend of mine has a little daughter who suffered from stomach aches every day before school until they had a study done that showed she suffered from dyslexia. This explained so much to her, such as why she could not read as fast as classmates that the tummy aches disappeared like snow in the sun.
She was getting stressed about her language skills and when it became clear that this was not entirely her fault, the stress went away too.
Reducing stress in a child with hypnosis
To reduce stress in your child, you can use hypnosis. Perhaps your child suffers from insecurity or beliefs about the importance of a particular skill that are not true at all.
The advantage of hypnosis with children, is that children are much more open to it and it works much better. Sometimes you can be ready to help your child get rid of tummy aches due to stress after just 1 session.
You then induce hypnosis first and then help your child lift his/her self-confidence. You can do this, for example, with hypnotic suggestions, such as:
"You are super smart."
"You don't have to get everything right at 1 time if you just keep trying."
"You don't have to be able to do everything."
"X are your talents."
These are just examples of suggestions that can help with childhood stress. A hypnotherapist can help you and your child find the right suggestions that fit the cause of the stress and the beliefs your child has. Then you can repeat the therapist's suggestions at home the moment you notice your child is suffering from stress.
Anxiety in a child with abdominal pain
Stress and anxiety are very close to each other. In the case of the example above, frustration with language skills is something that causes stress, but not anxiety.
Unfortunately, bullying is still a problem in Dutch schools and even still in companies.
Also for anxiety as a cause of abdominal pain, you can ask your child questions about how he/she is doing. Is someone acting annoying? Has he/she heard something about ghosts for the first time? Is there a new poster in the house that scares at?
When you notice abdominal pain accompanied by the desire to suddenly sleep with a light on again, you often know enough.
Reducing anxiety in your child with hypnosis
Does your child suffer from anxiety? If so, it is especially important to change beliefs about the issue he fears, such as:
"You may say something back to the bully, that he/she is just a dork."
"Ghosts don't exist."
These are just examples. A hypnotherapist can help you find the right suggestions to reduce anxiety in your child with abdominal pain.
In addition, sometimes you can be very practical and remove the source of anxiety, such as paintings or posters that your child finds scary.
Nutrition or changing nutrition
Nutrition or introducing new foods can also sometimes cause tummy aches. If your child has eaten too many pancakes, the cause makes sense, but sometimes you can't make sense of it until you realize your child has never had pomegranate, or sushi or anything like that.
Eating healthy can also be really hard for some kids, especially if they suddenly have to switch from an unhealthy diet to a healthy diet because otherwise they will have too many health problems.
For example, research has shown that people who are addicted to salt food can become nauseous if they stop eating salt. So your child may also suffer from this when it is time to drastically change the diet for his/her health.
Visualizing how the gut takes in food
You can then help your child with a hypnotic visualization. You first have your child sit or lie down relaxed and focus on breathing. When you know the hypnotic state is good, you can begin the visualization. In the visualization, for example, you can explain the workings of the bowels, such as:
"You feel your hands on your belly and the heat from your hands goes through your skin to your intestines. That is where the food is causing the weird feeling. This weird feeling is your intestines working hard to pass all the healthy vitamins and minerals to your blood which causes them to give the food back to your cells in the body. You feel how the fibers are slowly passing all the nutrients to your body. You notice that the warmth of the hands calms your intestines making them do their good work more peacefully and making your stomach bother you less. Every time you have eaten and your bowels are too fanatically working to pass your nutrition to your body put your hands on your belly for a moment until the warmth of your hands has reached your bowels properly and calmed them down."
This is just one example of a visualization that can help your child with food-induced nausea. If this does not work, a hypnotherapist can help you use the visualization that fits your child's problems.
Also, always check if there isn't something wrong with the diet after all, and if the nausea doesn't go away, you can always see a doctor as well.
Constipation
Do you also have one of those little angels who necessarily wants white bread without crusts? There is no way you can get your angel to eat brown bread with fiber. While you know that this is the solution for constipation.
Fruit, beans, porridge, anything with fiber is important to prevent constipation. Do you have an angel who wants to eat only white bread, only white pasta, and especially no vegetables and no fruit? Then chances are that the abdominal pain is caused by constipation.
One solution might then be to remind your child that what you eat affects what comes out, or what doesn't come out. The threat that the doctor will otherwise put his/her finger in his/her behind to check what constipation is may be enough to make your child actually eat that apple after all.
Is brown bread just really not working out? Then you can see if you can have breakfast with porridge instead of bread and to snack right with a bar with fiber instead of chocolate or whatever your child normally takes that doesn't have fiber in it.
Drinking enough water is also very important to reduce constipation.
In addition, the amount of exercise your child gets can also affect the development of constipation. In fact, exercise helps to support the function of the bowels. Therefore, encourage your child with exercise.
Hypnosis for your child's healthy lifestyle
To help your child eat healthy, high-fiber foods and exercise more, you can also use hypnosis. For example, hypnosis is used to increase sports motivation and to make healthy eating more appealing.
For example, does your child think sweating is gross? Then you can change beliefs about sweating. After all, every tough athlete sweats.
If your child has abdominal pain, this is incredibly annoying. There are multiple causes and solutions for it. Does the abdominal pain last longer than 3 hours, is it not easy to get rid of and does your child feel the need to move because of the pain? If so, always contact a doctor.
Need help with hypnosis? Then you can come to a playshop or even take a training course from the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands.
Sources:
https://www.webmd.com/children/tc/abdominal-pain-age-11-and-younger-topic-overview
