How To Put The Subconscious Mind To Work
	Healing Children <  Previous Contents Next  >

Children are particularly open to suggestion because they have not had the experiences which develop reason, make them skeptical and cautious.

The secret power within the child is that this spirit of healing meets with little or no resistance. If medicine is kept away and no disturbing influence or fear be allowed to interfere with the natural process and the mother has the faith and the confidence she can better fill the office of health restorer than anyone else.

We can successfully treat children, youths or adults by oral suggestion if we can get their attention long enough. The difficulty with children is that they are so active we find it difficult to get their attention for any length of time. The older children may offer objections because of their being at that particular age when they "know everything." They may not agree with mental treatment, especially if they are being treated for perversion, correction of bad habits or undeveloped character. They may not only demur mentally but outright which opposition would make a strong counter suggestion.

In healing children we are not constrained by the same limitations of doubt and questioning as with the adult.

Children are much more sensitive to the thought forces of those about them than are grown ups.

The chief difficulty in dealing with children lies too often in the faulty attitude of the parent, for a highly organized child is easily affected by the false beliefs and nerves of his elders, so the healer must always endeavor to get the co-operation of the father and mother or other near relative. If this co-operation can be secured, healing a child is easy, otherwise it is hard, unless the child throws himself upon the "mercy" of God and you, which is rarely the case if there is a strong opposition manifested by the parents. Fortunate the practitioner who has to deal only with parents not skeptical about mental healing.

In any event, do not argue, merely present your case giving the same reasons for healing as you give your patient, then draw attention to the greater sensitiveness of the child. If the doctors have failed most parents will yield at least a negative co-operation in healing their children by mind.

Sometimes the parent by scolding, nagging, lack of self control, worrying, etc., not only makes the child sick, but continues the vibration which prevents the child from being healed.

The only thing to do in a case like this is to tell the parent to play on his own cellar door and keep away from the child as much as possible--to dig up the weeds in his own soul garden.

It is either the case of a parent staying on his own side of the fence, and giving the practitioner and the child a chance to help nature, or surrendering to the negative forces that be.

After you have taken the foregoing precautions it will not be difficult to get the attention and interest of the child, for the child has great faith in God. It is an inborn instinct.

Explain to the child that God has given him a perfect body, that God is always close to him, ready and willing to keep him strong and well, that right now he hears and understands, and in spite of the clouds that seem to be drifting along his skyline of health God hears and will make him well.

Faith is an inborn attribute of childhood.

Narrate stories of Christ's healings. They always have a strong appeal to children. Then give a treatment in your own way, as your good judgment dictates, and go upon your way rejoicing.

For just as the child is more sensitive to the influences or inharmonies about home, so is he more sensitive to the influences for good and for health. Remember, "it is never God's will for any of these little ones to be sick."

In treating a baby it is easy to treat through the Mother, or some other person who has charge of the child, because the baby will be more responsive to the suggestion and helpfulness of the mother or some one particularly close to it than to others. Instruct the mother in your presence how, when you are gone, the child should be treated.

Use the same method as you would for an adult, but put it in a child's language.

The child is most susceptible to telepathic impressions from its mother.

In Applied Psychology and Scientific Living we point out the experiences of women who, nursing their babies in highly emotional and temperamental states, have poisoned them until convulsions have taken place and even death--the babe actually poisoned to death by the mother.

But the child is, by way of the breast not only physically receptive to the mother's mental condition but is influenced by telepathic suggestion from her. If the mother is in a highly emotional state, such as envy, fear, dread, worry, anger; if she receives a shock, is frightened or is the recipient of bad news (whether the child nurses or not) this chemical state is communicated and as the child's physical resistance is less than an adult's it is made even more ill than the mother.

Just one instance of a hysterical woman and her child will show receptiveness and susceptibility to healing which characterize childhood.

The mother constantly parades her symptoms before the child, in whom, through the paramount juvenile instinct of imitation, similar manifestations are quickly aroused. Furthermore, when such a child is delicate as is frequently the case, it often complains of petty ailments and succeeds in evoking expressions of maternal sympathy or alarm which only fan the flames. With a tendency to self-consciousness and hypersensitiveness already existing in the child, the manifestations of sympathy produce undue exaggerations and pave the way for the outbreak of nervous symptoms. Such a child, and this is of course true of other children also, should be taught to bear trifling ailments patiently.

A mother may hear a doctor, nurse or neighbor discuss the symptoms of spasms. Telepathically the child catches these vibrations. That night the mother may be startled to see her child shudder, shiver and go into convulsions purely from suggestions reaching it.

Many a child while unable to talk or, apparently, to understand its mother's tongue, hears negative talk about sickness of various kinds and takes on the symptoms which he hears discussed. These symptoms, unless uprooted will stay by the child all through life.

If you have been unable to find the cause of your sickness, probably your mother or those who attended you in infancy will be able to recall the unfavorable suggestions which were given in your hearing while very young.

In such an event the healing takes place by counter-suggestion the same as suggestion for other wrong thoughts which have caused one's sickness.