NLP Podcast 86: NLP with children - an interview with Mirela Ivanceanu

Mirela Ivanceanu comes from Romania and came to Germany at a young age without her family. As a result, she lived independently very early on. Over 15 years ago, she discovered NLP because she was not really satisfied and sought support.

To this day, she is enthusiastic about NLP and leads the Seminar "Partnership" of the Integral Year Training as well as together with Ralf Stumpf our NLP location in Berlin.

NLP with children

Mirela has a 9-year-old daughter and applies NLP both consciously and unconsciously in her interactions with her daughter. "All emotions are allowed," she says. Whether her daughter is very angry or sad – the emotions that arise are accepted. Where the emotions come from is not important at first. It is initially only important to allow the emotions and not to suppress them in any way.

A method that works particularly well with children is the work with the representational systems and the Submodalities. Mirela shares an example in the podcast of a child who was stung by a bee and cried terribly. She went to the child and said: "Do you remember snow? Imagine there is snow on the sting." The child gradually calmed down.

Mirela also tries to find out what goal her daughter aims for with certain sentences or statements. Often, she simply asks how her daughter feels about the statement, what exactly happened, and how her daughter wants to deal with the situation. This means that Mirela always tries to support her daughter in finding the solution rather than imposing her own opinion and solution on her daughter.

"When I don't feel well, children annoy me," Mirela says. This made her aware that her daughter is a reflection of herself – both the shadow sides and the sunny sides. As a parent, it is precisely for this reason important to see oneself as a responsible role model for one's children. "If a child does not take others into account, the question is to what extent do I take care of myself or to what extent do I take care of the child?" Mirela says.

In the podcast, Mirela also gives more tips for dealing with children and advice on how parents can manage to take the necessary time for a conscious interaction with their children even amidst everyday stress.