Who's your dadddy: Is your kid Indigo

Nope, I don’t mean is he or she are darker shade of blue. Indigo kids are, according to some, the next step in our evolution, bright sparks who are in-touch with the vibrations of the universe and stuff….Mmmm others think it’s a bunch of horse manure and well,

nothing to write home about. If you’ve never heard of the term, it may surprise you that it has apparently been around for some time.

According to Wikipedia, Indigo children is a pseudoscientific label given to children who are claimed to possess special, unusual and / or supernatural traits or abilities. The idea is based on New Age concepts developed by Nancy Anne Tappe in the 1970s. The concept of indigo children gained popular interest with the publication of a series of books in the late 1990s and the release of several films the following decade.

A variety of books, conferences and related materials have been created surrounding belief in the idea of indigo children and their nature and abilities. These beliefs range from their being the next stage in human evolution or possessing paranormal abilities such as telepathy to the belief that they are simply more empathic and creative than their peers. According to Nancy Ann Tappe, there are four kinds of Indigo types: Humanist, Artist, Conceptualist and Catalyst.

However, skeptics suggest that the indigo phenomenon is due to parents preferring to believe their children are special, rather than having a medical diagnosis which implies damage or imperfection. Also criticized are the traits used to describe children, which are so vague as to be able to apply to anyone. Apparently many so-called Indigo children are diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. 

Our own local Indigo Child?

What made me think about this phenomenon was ten-year-old Jordan van der Walt’s “Just One Bag” campaign. This little man was on the radio recently and at first I wasn’t sure if I was listening to a mature, concerned adult. The boy was talking about his realization that he wanted to help people, when he saw starving people on the side of the road. And he just started going around asking people to donate “Just One Bag” of maize meal.

He sounded so professional, compassionate, but most importantly, absolutely real, and committed. You know how you can tell when someone is just doing something for publicity or as a stunt? Well this boy had none of that, he was caring personified. Which made me think that he could in-fact be and Indigo child of the humanist type, no?

And what made this boy’s campaign even more impressive was that people were responding in droves, even the presenter of the radio show immediately donated R5000 worth of maize meal, while Jordan announced that he had raised 5 tons so far on his own.

Think about it for a second. The kid is 10-years-old! How many ten-year-olds are affected by the plight of someone else to the extent that they would commit to a project like this wholeheartedly, giving up hanging out with friends or computer games or whatever it is that they do?  As parents our job is to always be aware of our kids’ tendencies towards particular paths, good or bad. It’s as important to be curious as to whether little Sipho is experimenting with drugs as it is to wonder if he has suddenly developed a penchant for deciphering complex mathematical equations.

 Jordan has his parents’ full support, without which I think he probably still would have succeeded, and I say this just based on the bit of his personality I was exposed to on the radio. But the fact that his folks are behind him and did not say something stupid like “you can’t change the world you know”, means that he is now in-fact making a difference in the world. Look out for the tell tale signs of greatness in your kids, and support and nurture it to the full! Join me on Saturday 19 November 2011 @ 21:00 on DSTV Mindset Channel 319 when my guests and I will discuss the Indigo Child Phenomenon on

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