New Children or New Awareness of Children?
By Susan Gale
A new bandwagon has arrived on the scene. In bright letters, the sign reads INDIGO! From its large platform are those hawking their ideas, scripts, tools, and most of all, labels. Not only that, there are those who persist in the negativity that the ego has developed, warning us of needing to be cleared at certain ages, upcoming battles, and other fear based events.
As someone who has worked with or helped with raising children since the age of nine, I can say that the abilities parents are noticing in their offspring are not something new. What is new is that we are not only noticing them, but also encouraging them. Quite a difference this is from what happened to my friend’s mother about 90 years ago, who, at the age of five, was asked to sweep the living room. She obeyed by sitting on the couch and causing the broom to sweep. For her troubles, she was beaten soundly and told never to do such a thing again. While many parents would still have the same reaction today, a growing number would appreciate this ability and encourage its growth. I myself would have said something to the effect, “let’s see what you can do with the duster!”
All the ideas about good parenting and good education practices for the “Indigos” are simply good parenting and good education practices for any child and have been around for a long time. John Dewey and Rudolf Steiner were writing about and teaching them in the early 1900’s. A. Maslow was talking about the psychology of being and peak experiences in numerous publications all through the mid-1900’s. M. Seligman has been studying the effects of holding a positive intent for decades. Eastern philosophies and religions have practiced this reality for longer than anyone knows.
Do we need to have the labels? Is it necessary to identify others and ourselves as a crystal, Indigo, starseed, and so forth? In trying to resolve this, we are confronted with one crucial factor in this entire movement: Marketing! Publishers are refusing to print related books unless the label Indigo is in the title! Newspaper articles perpetuate the practice by doing the same thing. Diets, activities, and the like are all put forth as being “for the Indigo!” Those who measure the number of hits online made in this field know that using the word Indigo means more hits. But in our personal lives and in our conversations, can we not step past the marketing ploys?
Can we truly get to a level of knowing in which we do not need labels? Can we truly see all people for just whom they are. Can we get past the superficiality of needing to categorize and label people? Can we not just identify children by their given names?
As a long time educator of children who were mistakenly labeled as being at risk (it was their environment that was risky; they were just having normal reactions to the situations), I know the harm labels can have.
Labels are a way to control. With labels we can neatly place people in categories like the colored beads and blocks we use with our preschool children. We peg certain actions with a name and thus make it so. ADD is nothing more than a cluster of behavior descriptors. If the child exhibits these behaviors for whatever reason, then the child can be labeled ADD. However, in my own experience, the reason is more likely because the child is confused or upset about something and too distracted by this to be able to pay attention. Once we label a person, it is extremely difficult for the label to be shed; just ask anyone who has suffered from identity theft.
My older son came into our family when he was 10. The school was going to put him in the category of educable mentally retarded (EMR), as he could barely write his name. That was unacceptable to me. I could look into his eyes and see the intelligence he possessed. The first summer he was with us, he learned how to read; the second summer he learned his math. By the time he was 19, he graduated from a private college prep high school with an 81 average, taking some advanced courses. He made all of that progress, from being illiterate at the age of ten to graduating with a respectable average in just nine years! What if he and I had accepted the label of being EMR?
I believe we will do far better to help our children understand being in bodies and using a body as a conduit for the soul’s expression than to worry about a label. What we need to do is to learn more about how the physical brain meshes the multi-dimensional awareness with the three dimensional body. This is the key to being of help to our children as they strive to maintain their multi-dimensional abilities, the connections to their true selves or awareness.
We have known for a long time what the best practices are in raising and teaching children, regardless of whether they manifest intuitive abilities or not. Basically, do not fall down when the children try to push past safe boundaries of behavior and present knowledge in a context that makes learning meaningful and relevant to a child’s life. And in both teaching and parenting, always, at the end of the day, make sure the child knows he/she is loved, welcomed and wanted. Of course, there are many details, but the details fall under these statements.
Let us look our children in the eye and think and/or say, “You are simply you. I will honor who you are and allow you to be. Whenever your brain leads you on a path that is not helpful, I will firmly stand in your way. I will stand out of your way when spirit is leading you. I will be your guide for understanding earthly things, your supporter for spiritual things. I will do the best I can to honor your choosing me as your parent. For there is only one of you and the name for your being is ____.” (and say your child’s name.)
