Indigo Kids

INDIGO CHILDREN

Indigo children refers to children who, according to the New Age movement, represent a higher state of human evolution. The exact nature of Indigo children, and the attributes associated with them varies between different New Age believers and communities with some believing that they have paranormal abilities, such as the ability to read minds, and others believing that they are otherwise normal children who distinguished from non-Indigo children by more conventional traits such as increased empathy and creativity.

THE TERM

The term Indigo Child was coined 17 years ago by Nancy Ann Tappe, a parapsychologist who developed a system for classifying people's personalities according to the hue of their auras, described in her 1982 book, Understanding Your Life Through Colors. According to her, auras have been entering and exiting Earth throughout history. For example, aura colors such as fuchsia and magenta disappeared from the gene pool 100 years ago (though she was recently shocked to find a fuchsia living in Palm Springs). It stood to reason that a new life color was about to make an appearance.

Tappe was unable to find the new color scheme until a baby was born with a heart murmur at a children's hospital in San Diego whom she recognized as being dark blue. The child died six weeks later, but more and more indigo-colored personalities began to appear in the '80s, and their numbers were clearly rising.

But it was the 1999 book The Indigo Children, by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober, that popularized the idea of the next generation. Carroll was an economics major who ran a technical audio business for 30 years until a visit to a psychic prompted a New Age midlife crisis. He found religion and started traveling around the world giving "self-help" seminars.

The genesis of the book came when they began noticing similar accounts of strange behavior in children from teachers, counselors and psychologists who attended their seminars. As they began to look into these occurrences, they found kids were indeed being born with an "unusual set of psychological attributes" and displaying "a pattern of behavior generally undocumented before." Using a collection of essays and interviews from experts in the field -- mostly counselors working in such New Age areas as Angel Therapy and alternative medicines -- the book focuses on raising an Indigo Child. Some of the main attributes they describe are a sense of "deserving to be here" and "knowing who they are," difficulty with authority, a dislike of activities that don't require creative thought and a feeling of royalty (and acting like it).

One thesis of The Indigo Children seems to be that many children diagnosed as having attention deficit disorder (ADD) or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) represent "a new kind of evolution of humanity."* These children don't need drugs like Ritalin, but special care and training. The book consists of dozens of articles by authors from many walks of life. It is, accordingly, inconsistent and uneven in quality of analysis and advice. Nancy Ann Tappe is a contributor.

How to recognize them?

• They come into the world with a feeling of royalty (and often act like it)

• They have a feeling of "deserving to be here," and are surprised when others don't share that.

• Self-worth is not a big issue. They often tell the parents "who they are."

• They have difficulty with absolute authority (authority without explanation or choice).

• They simply will not do certain things; for example, waiting in line is difficult for them.

• They get frustrated with systems that are ritually oriented and don't require creative thought.

• They often see better ways of doing things, both at home and in school, which makes them seem like "system busters" (nonconforming to any system).

• They seem antisocial unless they are with their own kind. If there are no others of like consciousness around them, they often turn inward, feeling like no other human understands them. School is often extremely difficult for them socially.

• They will not respond to "guilt" discipline ("Wait till your father gets home and finds out what you did").

• They are not shy in letting you know what they need.

Dodatno: INDIGO CHILDREN - CRYSTALLINE