Indigo Children: Master Teachers and Innate Healers

"The Indigo Child is a boy or girl who displays a new and unusual set of psychological attributes, revealing a pattern of behavior generally undocumented before. This pattern has singularly unique factors that call for parents and teachers to change their treatment and upbringing of these kids to assist them in achieving balance and harmony in their lives, and to help them avoid frustration." -- Lee Carroll & Jan Tober

Ihave a seven-year-old Indigo son. I've been working as a teacher's aide in his classrooms through preschool, kindergarten, and now first grade, and I've observed his interactions with Indigos and non-Indigos of all ages. It's been interesting! In fact, trying to put it all down in writing has been a challenge because the children do so many subtle things.

Indigos process their emotions differently than non Indigos because they have high self-esteem and strong integrity. They can read you like an open book and quickly notice and neutralize any hidden agendas or attempts to manipulate them, however subtly. In fact, they can see your hidden agendas even if you can't! They have inherently strong determination to work things through for themselves and only want outside guidance if it's presented to them with respect and within a format of true choice. They prefer to work situations out for themselves.

They come in with their intentions and gifts easily identifiable from birth. They can suck up knowledge like a sponge, especially if they like or are drawn to a subject, which makes them very advanced in their areas of interest. Experiencing life helps them learn best, so they create the experiences they need to help them with their current problem or area where they need to grow. They respond best when treated like a respected adult.

Finding Your Hidden Agendas or Motives

Not only are they masters at intuitively picking up on hidden agendas or motives, but they are equally masterful at turning those agendas back onto the people using them, especially their parents. Psychological "button pushing" often causes them to be labeled as nonconformists. If they notice that there is a hidden motive behind your attempt to get them to do something, they will resist strongly and feel perfectly justified in doing so. From their point of view, if you're not doing your work in the relationship, they can challenge you on it.


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When I called them good "button pushers" what I really meant is that they're working with us adults to help us recognize where we are holding and using old, subtle patterns to manipulate them, which used to work but will no longer. So if you are constantly getting resistance from an Indigo, check yourself first. They may be holding up a mirror for you, or be asking you, in a nonconformist way, for help in finding new boundaries, fine-tuning their own skills or talents, or going to the next level of growth.

Innate Healing Abilities

Indigos have innate healing abilities that are usually already active; however, they may not know that they are using them! The most spectacular thing I observed was how they formed groups, adjusting and spacing themselves, especially around another child who might have been sick or upset — sitting and blending their energy field with that child's. Most often, they paired up one on one, but sometimes they formed groups and sat in either a triangular or diamond-shaped pattern. It wasn't done in an obvious way, but very subtly. When finished, they were off to something else.

It was amazing. They just did it, but they didn't want to discuss it; in some cases, they weren't even consciously aware of what they were doing or why! It was so natural to them that if a child needed something from the Indigos, they just went and sat next to them for a while, not even necessarily talking, and then they separated.

Another interesting thing was that, off and on throughout the year, the Indigos went through periods of attracting and repelling each other, or periods of really needing each other's company and then of not needing it. I'm not totally clear on this, but it seems to coincide with individual personal development. The closeness and concern they had for each other was never lost during those periods of separation, but they wouldn't go back together, either, until all was right for them.

Family Challenges

I'll give you one little story regarding my Indigo son. Let me give you the background: My husband and his family are Chinese Americans, and I am of German/Finnish heritage. My husband's family places great emphasis on education, and the siblings were brought up with a strong need to succeed. This still sometimes spills over onto their children, in the form of whose are better, smarter, and faster.

My husband and I agree about not participating in all this competitiveness, but that doesn't stop it from happening around us. To top it off, consider that out of the five grandchildren, my son is the only boy — that is, the only male heir — and I think you'll get a pretty clear picture of the undercurrents.

We were at my in-laws' house on Christmas day, and my son, who was almost four years old at the time, was showing off his Millennium Falcon™ (a Star Wars™ toy that was meant for a six-year-old) that he had received from us that morning. It was the giant one that opens up, and inside were all kinds of little compartments, similarly but not identically shaped.

He wasn't interested in that portion of the toy at that time. He was only interested in pretending to fly it and shoot the rockets — living out his fantasies. One of his uncles asked to play with it and proceeded to take all the little doors off of all the compartments. He handed them to my son in a pile and asked, "Can you put this back together?"

It was a setup! All the doors were the same color, and the differences in shape and size were very subtle. Oh, and the tone of voice he used — like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. This uncle has three daughters and a whole lot of personal agendas, so his actions were not a total surprise, but . . . I absolutely love what happened next.

I started to intervene, and my son turned and looked me, dead in the eye, with a look on his face I'll never forget. He looked at me to see what I was going to do, and in the instant that it took for him to read my intentions, which were of Mommy Lioness — I'm not going to let this happen to my son — he responded just as quickly. He gave me a look that said, Back off, Mom, I'm taking this one on myself, and I felt the energy shift as he took command of the entire room.

Everyone stopped talking and turned to look over at him. He calmly said to his uncle, "I don't know. I've never done that before; let me see." Then he proceeded to put that thing back together quickly and accurately!

When he was done, the energy shifted again, and he looked over at me as if to ask, "Was that okay?" I just smiled and said, "Good job." Everyone there caught the double meaning, including his uncle, who has never since done anything like that to my son or to anyone else's child in our presence.

No direct comments were made that night about the situation. We all just knew that we were each going to process it individually and privately, each getting our own lesson — all because this little one decided to learn for himself.

Being Master of Your Own Life

Indigos are born masters — each and every one! We have to understand that they fully expect every one of us to do what they are doing naturally, and if we don't, they keep pushing our buttons until we get it right — that is, until we become the masters of our own lives. So when my son did his thing, he taught everyone there a quiet lesson, including himself.

For me, the lesson was, let him go; despite his age, he is capable. Stay aware and watch the process. The process in this case was very interesting. He quickly and accurately sized up the situation, and determined his response based on what he wanted to experience. After making sure he had backup, he chose to confront the person directly, and at that point, he immediately called up all the energies necessary to complete the task. Afterward, he released it all back just as quickly and went back to his own business.

I've witnessed many similar situations that he or other Indigos handled in the same way. They will size up a situation and then choose their actions based on what they want to experience at the time. The only adjustments to this pattern that I've seen were based on what type of backup they had. In a safe environment, they have consistently used this pattern.

Safety is very important, because all children need to feel safe to fully explore their universe. For Indigos, safety means that it's okay to do things differently! Giving everyone this space is the best thing we can do for children and for ourselves.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher,
Hay House, www.hayhouse.com

This article was excerpted from

The Indigo Children
by Lee Carroll and Jan Tober.

Indigo ChildrenThis book is a must for the parents of unusually bright and active children. Indigo children are those who display a new and unusual set of psychological attributes and show a pattern of behaviour generally undocumented before. In this groundbreaking book on the Indigo Child, international authors Lee Carroll and Jan Tober report the information of this increasingly documented and world-wide phenomenon and tell you how to identify this behavioural pattern and guide you on how you, as a parent or teacher of these children, can help them realise their amazing potential not forgetting their spiritual needs or specific health issues.

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About The Author

Debra Hegerle was initially a "left-brain" accountant for 14 years. She decided to follow a more "right brain" career path as a travel consultant by day and psychic reader by night. Six years later, she opened her own company, Dragonfly Productions, doing both bookkeeping and psychic consultancy. She is also a volunteer teacher's aide in California. She lives with indigo children on a daily basis, not only in the classroom, but also in her home.