“How Can EFT Tapping Help When I Feel Frustrated with My Kids?”

“How Can EFT Tapping Help When I Feel Frustrated with MyKids?”

It’s a familiar moment, you walk into the room and seeclothes scattered across the floor again, and before you’ve even had time tothink, you feel that surge of frustration rise in your body. If you’ve everfound yourself reacting more strongly than you’d like in these everydayparenting moments, you’re not alone. Parenting can be incredibly rewarding, butit can also be overwhelming, especially when the same situations keeprepeating. This is where EFT tapping can help—by supporting you to calm yournervous system, reduce emotional intensity, and respond more intentionally,even in the middle of those frustrating moments with your kids.

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), often known as tapping,is a gentle mind-body approach that involves tapping on specific acupressurepoints while focusing on a thought, feeling, or issue. It combines elements ofpsychology with physical calming techniques to help regulate the nervous systemand reduce emotional intensity. By tapping while acknowledging what you’reexperiencing, EFT can help the body feel safer, making it easier to processemotions, shift patterns, and respond more calmly.

When Small Moments Trigger Big Feelings

My children are now 7 and 5, and for as long as I canremember, shower time would often leave me feeling angry and frustrated. They’djump in the shower and leave their dirty clothes in the middle of the bathroomfloor—cue the frustration. Before I even had time to think, I’d find myselfyelling through the house for them to come back and pick them up, which theyalways did. But for me, the moment didn’t end there. I was left feelingheightened, my nervous system still on alert. Alongside the frustration cameguilt for yelling, and I was left holding all those emotions on my own

Cue EFT Tapping

I still remember my very first EFT practitioner training. The trainer asked us to think of a small grievance—nothing too overwhelming.I Immediately thought, I’ve got one… my kids leaving their dirty clothes onthe floor. It felt like the perfect, everyday situation to test whethertapping would work.

So I began:

“Even though I feel frustrated—and I can feel it in mychest—just thinking about my kids leaving their dirty clothes on the bathroomfloor, I deeply and completely accept myself.”

As I tapped through the points, I focused on what I wasfeeling:

“This frustration in my chest…”

That was over two years ago, and something shifted. Now,when my kids leave their clothes on the floor, I simply walk into the livingarea and calmly ask them to put them in the basket. There’s no anger, nofrustration—just calm and clarity.

Why EFT Tapping Worked

What shifted for me wasn’t the situation—it was my nervoussystem’s response to it. Before tapping, my body reacted automatically, movingstraight into frustration and anger. EFT helped to calm that stress response byallowing me to acknowledge what I was feeling while sending a signal of safetyto my body. By tapping on that specific moment, it reduced the emotional chargeattached to it. So now, when the same situation happens, it no longer triggersthat same reaction. Instead of reacting, I have the space to respond calmly—andthat’s where the real change happened.

Parenting is full of small moments that can feel bigger thanthey are, especially when our nervous system is already stretched. The goodnews is, those reactions aren’t fixed—they can shift. EFT tapping offers asimple, gentle way to support your body to feel calmer, so you can respond in away that feels more aligned with the kind of parent you want to be. Andsometimes, it’s those small shifts that create the biggest change.

If this resonates with you and you’d like support in learning how to use EFT tapping in your own life, I offer counselling and EFT sessions in Bunbury and online. You can find out more or get in touch via mywebsite. www.edlcounselling.com.au

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