Parents Of Indigo Children Are Teaching Them They’re So Special They Can Speak To The Dead

indigo child bookThe trend of diagnosing kids as being “indigo children” arose in the seventies as a response to increasing rates of ADHD and ADD. Indigo children are apparently those who are confident, who know they’re special, who don’t like authority, and who want their needs met immediately (also know as literally every small child ever). But now the trend has gone beyond merely ‘really annoying’, because some indigo parents aren’t content with just having confident, rule-hating, difficult-to-discipline children. They’re also ascribing supernatural abilities to these super-special snowflakes.

The local Fox station in St. Louis, Missouri, breathlessly reported on the existence of these amazing indigo-auric angels among us, by interviewing several people who claim they can, in no particular order:

WHAT. Be sure to check out the the video on the news piece; and if you do watch it, please enjoy the production values that went into someone sticking an angel doll to a stick and filming it ‘flying’ against a video-screen background.

I understand the desire to have a ‘special’ or ‘unique’ kid (or to be one!), and sure, ADD and ADHD may be over-diagnosed, but no. The solution is not to tell a child that their unwillingness to sit still for an entire episode of Arthur indicates a connection to a supernatural realm. And you really, really cannot tell your children that they are the main character from The Sixth Sense and think that’s okay. When you’re teaching your child he or she has free rein to go prey on vulnerable people by talking to their lost loved ones or telling their future, you are way past ‘my kid is special’ and well into ‘my kid’s worldview is now permanently warped by my parenting decisions’. Tell your kids they’re unique as much as you want, but maybe cut your message off somewhere before they think they’re entitled to speak for the dead.

I’m not going to diagnose anyone with anything based on a video, because I am not Bill Frist. But the ‘indigo children’ in this news story are either lying their pants off, or they could at least use an evaluation by a health professional. (Except maybe for the little girl they spoke to, who sounds like she’s telling a made-up story pretty much like any other child her age would do. Too bad she’s going to get told her story is definitely true, unlike other kids, who are going to hear, “what a great imagination you have!”) Unfortunately the only “doctor” interviewed in this piece, Dr. Barbara Condron, has a doctorate in metaphysics granted by … wait for it … the School of Metaphysics. Yeah, I’ll definitely accept her stance on the subject uncritically–thank you, local news, for this totally objective journalism.

This truly exemplary piece of investigative (and editing) work concludes by stating:

Whether you believe they see angels or spirits. One would have to admit their vision is extraordinary.

Um, can I pick “none of the above”? Despite all the interviewees’ discussions of psychic powers, telekinesis, and the ability to walk through walls, we are sadly treated to no such demonstration. All we get is the troubling knowledge that there are people out there teaching their kids that their ‘specialness’ is more important than not taking advantage of other people’s grief and loss. Which I guess is special in its own way–something more like this:

church lady isn't that special(Feature image: Fox 2 St. Louis; gif: tumblr)

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