Seeing the light about overmedicated
children
In order to explore the true
nature of American values, one person from each of the 50 states,
in alphabetical order, is being interviewed about their respective
lives, states and state of the union.
Is it any wonder that a generation of multi-tasking kids is having
trouble sitting still in classrooms, doing one thing at a time while
expected to pay strict attention? Some parents are medicating the
devil out of their children, but others have seen the light.
Susan Gale, 55, of Massachusetts, runs "A Place of Light,"
for intuitive children and their families. Chemically imbalanced people
need medication, she said, the same way diabetics do, in order to
live. But that isn't true for the vast majority of children who find
themselves dosed out. Mother's little helper, these days, seems to
be legal, and I can't help wondering what's going to happen when so
many zoned-out children become adults.
"'Indigo children' is a marketing term," said Gale, who
spent many years as a teacher and daycare provider and once allowed
a boy to stand on his head throughout a math lesson while the class
was being observed because asking him to stop would have taken up
all of her energy as he resisted.
When the class was over, the college interns who had been watching
asked the boy if he could explain fractions to them, and he did.
"They were amazed that he had been listening," she said.
"If I had asked him to sit still in his chair, he wouldn't have
listened, and I would have wasted all my energy trying to force him.
Nobody would have learned anything. So what if he wants to stand on
his head?"
During my two days as a substitute teacher many years ago, I learned
the hard way that the class clown never runs out of juice—or
tricks. For the first time—and fleetingly—I could see
why the temptation to smack hands with a ruler once won out over common
decency.
I first came across the term "Indigo children" a couple
of years ago. Some say such children represent the next wave in human
evolution, while others feel the label applies a patina of glory to
an otherwise "obnoxious" behavior pattern. I have seen a
number of different "checklists" on the Internet that one
can use, and the year Indigo children started being born seems to
veer between 1973 and 1978.
Here are the generally accepted characteristics of the so-called "Indigo"
or "intuitive" person:
Strong willed; creative; an "old soul;" independent and
proud; possibly psychic; a deep desire to help the world in a big
way; probably been diagnosed as having ADD or ADHD; prone to sleep
difficulties; easily bonds with plants or animals; a history of depression;
difficulty with authority figures; and a preference for nonconformity.
If there's anything people admire and fear in equal measures, it's
non-conformity.
Gale, a Unitarian who comes from a "racially mixed family of
some white people, some black, some Asian and some Middle Eastern,"
said her own son possesses a family trait of being "highly intuitive."
She noted that old ways of being and doing simply don't work in a
radically different world than the one in which parents—even
young ones—were raised.
I didn't even use a computer for the first time until after I graduated
from college, and yet I've seen children as young as three spending
hours in front of a computer. One exceptionally advanced child even
sent me instant messages at that age, which I assumed were "helped
along" by his mother, until I saw him at it with my own eyes.
His messages were perfectly presented, perhaps due to spell-check,
but he wasn't even four yet.
"He sends us messages in the house when we're at our computers,"
my friend said. "That's how we communicate."
Then there's television, cell phones, video games, text messaging
and every other kind of so-called virtual reality modern science has
to offer. Talk about old and in the way! Perhaps instead of focusing
every spare dollar on new war machines, including those in violation
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty while we condemn other nations
for attempting the same, we might consider restructuring the American
educational system. We already have the power to blow the world up
many times over. We should put our heads together and make an informed
decision to at least attempt to keep pace with China and India's math
and science programs.
"Educational paradigms are outmoded," Gale said. "You
have to keep in mind that the current public education system was
created to shape immigrants into good citizens. People were expected
to fit into the same box."
Small schools, such as those supported by Bill Gates, she said, are
far more productive. Instead of learning to be passive learners—watching
television to receive language instead of conversing, or sitting in
one place all day and being told what to do—children should
be given greater responsibility in the decision-making process of
their own lives, Gale said.
She doesn't just mean the ability to pick super-size over jumbo, but
to participate in the fundamental development of her own existence.
In other words, let a kid stand on his head. It doesn't hurt to foster
individuality. Look where homogeneity has gotten us.
P.S. Al Gore's new film, An Inconvenient Truth, is in theaters now.
It doesn't matter which side of the political spectrum you're on…go
see it. The documentary is masterfully done, using the kind of scientific
data the mainstream media has managed to successfully muddle in order
to convince Americans that sucking up the vast majority of the world's
resources at the possible cost of life on earth is business as usual.
