Q: I've been hearing a lot about "Indigo children." Could you tell me Indigo children are, and how long they've been around? I never heard of all of these "kinds" of children before! From what little I've read, it seems that they are a mysterious, special kind of child. Thanks for your thoughts.

 

A: 'Indigo children' is a New Age concept that began with a 1982 book by Nancy Ann Tappe, Understanding Your Life Through Color. Supposedly, these children have "paranormal" abilities, such as reading peoples' minds, seeing peoples' auras - the energy around their bodies, predicting the future, and so forth. When tested under strict laboratory conditions the children cannot replicate these skills.

 

I have two observations which I'd like to share: 1. the parents of these children are usually intelligent but very "flaky", and 2. the children are very intelligent but are also out-of-control, misbehaving brats. In fact, many of these children are labeled as ADHD, attention deficit
hyperactive disorder. 

 

Allow me to offer a more scientifically sound explanation of this phenomenon. These children's parents do not wish for their children to carry the pejorative label of ADHD, ergo they prefer to believe that their misbehaving child acts the way he or she does because he or she has some extraordinary ability, which is a nice cop-out. In other words they see their children as "special." 

There is a well established principle in psychology called the Greenspoon Effect, which was researched in the 1950's. Basically, a therapist or parent remains silent until the other person speaking says a few words that the listeners wish to reinforce. Thus, if the speaker says a statement that begins with "I" or "Me" the listener then says "Uh huh" or "I see" or something else that acknowledges that the listener is indeed listening. Interestingly, the speaker increases these statements over time, because these verbal patterns are being reinforced. This is why the case report methods of Freud and other historical figures turned out to be so inaccurate, i.e., the therapist was reinforcing what he or she wanted to hear in order to support his or here theories. This is what the Indigo parents are doing. They are inadvertently reinforcing the New Age language and verbal patterns of their children, because that is what they wish their child to be, i.e., "special." 

 

In addition, many of these parents seem to be extremely liberal and allow these children to be behavioral terrors. They are doing these children an enormous disservice by not teaching them to be respectful towards their parents or towards  other people.

We have the responsibility as parents to parent our children to be well behaved and respectful, AND if a child does have these paranormal abilities then being well behaved will not destroy these skills. This is a great and very timely question. In fact, next week I'll be doing a radio station broadcast on this topic in the most obvious state - California.