Have you ever wished that you could hypnotize your children so they would behave the way you wanted them to? One parent has been doing exactly that, though there is no science to support the idea that hypnosis is an effective parenting tool.
Lisa Macheberg is a hypnotherapist who has three children. She says she started hypnotizing her children the help them get through the night without wetting the bed.
She didn’t stop there, though. She now uses hypnotizing as a tool to help her kids deal with range of problems from performance anxiety to difficulty focusing. In an ABC News article about Lisa Machenberg, she said that hypnosis and parenting is a natural solution. She feels that parents influence their children anyway, and that they may as well learn how to do that with intention.
The same ABC News article noted that Lisa Machenberg charges $125 per hour for her hypnotherapy sessions, and that she has worked with more than 1,000 kids over the years that she has been practicing. She also works with parents on strategies that they can try at home. She teaches kids self-hypnosis strategies.
Would you consider using hypnosis as part of your parenting style? It might not be a simple as you think. Stanford Medicine reports that hypnosis doesn’t work for everyone. Dr. David Speigel, MD, estimates that one-quarter of the patients he sees cannot be hypnotized. It’s possible that hypnosis won’t work on your kids.
Another thing to consider comes from ABC News Chief Health and Medical Editor, Dr. Richard Besser. His parents are both clinical hypnotists. He says that hypnosis works for shaping behaviors, but that there isn’t evidence that shows whether or not it is a good tool for children.
“Hypno-Parenting” is not a parenting style. It may sound like hypnotizing your children into doing what you want them to, and thinking the way you want them to, is a simple solution. Doing so might make your parenting experience easier, but it’s not necessarily good for your kids.
Ideally, parents want to raise children who will be self-sufficient and well adjusted. To get there, kids need to learn from the mistakes they have made. They need experience in doing the hard things so that they can develop the skills to get through those types of situations in the future – when mom and dad aren’t around.
Parenting is not easy. It is understandable that a stressed out parent would wish for a quick and easy solution that would instantly change their children’s behaviors from bad to good. Unfortunately, shortcuts like hypnosis could rob children of the experiences they need in order to become healthy adults.
Image by Davide Della Casa on Flickr
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