Thinking of your child as an Indigo child, rather than a child with problems, is a much gentler way to cope. But there are a lot of dangers - you run the risk of letting your child get away with behaviour that is simply, purely antisocial. If it's behaviour you genuinely can't help your child to change, than having a handy excuse can make you feel better about it. But if it's something that you COULD help the child change, then the label is holding you all back...
It's like a lot of labels our kids get. Some can stop us from continuing to provide things that our kids are actually getting something out of. If someone tells us our child is stupid and we believe them, we stop the enrichment classes, we stop encouraging them to do brilliantly, we stop believing in them - and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
My brother got into business difficulties many years ago. His wife, at the depth of their financial despair, sought comfort from a fortune teller. She confided in this person all their financial woes and this fortune teller told her, "Do not worry. You will make that fortune back, but not in this state. You will make it back in another state."
It needed no psychic ability to know that if you go into receivership in one state, there is an embargo on you for several years, preventing you starting another business. But a move interstate - no such embargo. So of course, the interstate move was common business practice for people in that situation. No prizes awarded for guessing that they'd be thinking of moving interstate - my sister in law probably told the fortune teller this herself.
But on the basis of this forecast, my brother moved interstate and commenced a new business. He did not make his fortune back. He has not been bankrupted, but he is still a poor man. And it is decades later, now. he is now an old, frail, unwell man who cannot run a business, he can barely keep himself going. The state he moved to is a lovely place to live, unless you want to work. It has a very high unemployment rate and as a result, few people can afford the sort of products my brother was trying to sell.
The move interstate is an example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I don't know how sister in law can explain their failure to make their fortune back. Maybe it's lack of faith - a common excuse.
If you believe your child is an Indigo child, you need to examine this closely. As with other labels, you need an expert to assure you of this. You need to be sure that the expert is qualified and is not taking you for a ride. To my knowledge, there ARE no experts in this, other than the woman who defined this 'condition'. She defined it in terms that cannot be independently verified (like, how can you prove your child has an indigo-coloured aura? What technology can you use?) and spoke in general terms of "it is believed..." this, or that. "Most people consider..." That is NOT good reportage because it is trying to use alleged weight of numbers to win you over, with absolutely no verification, proof or genuine indication that ANYONE else but her and her acolytes think this way.
How about I invent Purple Haze Syndrome? I can tell, just by looking at people, that they possess the mythical Purple Haze which I have discerned from the many books on ancient mythology I've been researching for decades (and those who know me will attests to that research - so will my bookshelves). I even found references to this Purple Haze in my readings of Dante's Divine Comedies, for which he also researched ancient mythologies. I am a self-declared expert and my extensive reading and superior intellect have made this revelation possible. I want to benefit the human race, therefore I pass my revelations on to you. As the High Priestess of this new revelation, I am of course the expert. People come to me for assessment. It does of course cost a small amount, I do need to cover my own costs and feed my family (on caviar sandwiches, off gold plates). Those among you who acquire this Purple Haze ability will find you have the capacity to move through life, helping others with your superior wisdom. That wisdom won't always be well-received because there are unbelievers out there with Green Energy, also known as jealousy. Optically, Green cancels out Purple and this will for a short time when near these people, remove your Purple Powers. So it is important, to keep your powers strong, that you avoid these sceptics. So when people reject your advice which comes from the Cosmic Energy, then avoid them in the future, they only bring you down. You know this to be true. Save your energy for those who value you and value what you can do for them. In time you will recruit others and help them acquire the Purple Haze Syndrome themselves, and eventually the entire human race can wander around in one huge Purple Haze.
OK, it's not really true, I'm just being naughty.
We would like to believe because it's a 'nicer', prettier theory. My answer - invent your own theory which is just as nice but more closely based in verifiable reality. Find genuine gifts in your child and play them up. Praise the child for what he/she can do. Love your child just for who they are. DO NOT value them for some possibly mythical belief system or your child will wonder what it is about them REALLY that is of value, and are they perhaps an entire fraud after all? Kids are very perceptive - the child may be fairly sure, at some level, that all this is rubbish but scared that if they let it stop then their parents will go back to seeing them as a problem child. If the child refuses to believe, will you stop believing in this wonderful thing too? If the child stops 'manifesting' whatever it is the parent has (often unwittingly) trained them to manifest, will all the wonderful, special attention go away?
Unlike the Amazing Randi (! yep, heard of him) I do not believe these parents of children labelled as Indigo children are openly fraudulent. I believe they are parents of difficult children who are clutching at straws. In doing so, they risk damaging their children by encouraging 'manifestations' purely by the parental positive response when the kids happen to do something or say something that someone else considers a marvel. And when adults are looking for marvels, they will find them.
This is nothing more than a case of "The Emperor's New Clothes".
There used to be a parlour game where the guests all conspired to convince one of the other party guests that they had psychic abilities (I read this in a book about party games, from about 1930 or so). The rules were vague, but basically the other guests had to get the patsy to try to guess certain things, but tell them they had got it right even if they hadn't. According to this book, the fun really began when this person began to really believe in their own psychic abilities. The author of the book said it wasn't unknown for this belief to persist for a long time after the party, even after the patsy was told it was all a big hoax. Belief systems can be really hard to shift, once they get sufficiently entrenched.
Also, I do think games were more cruel in those days.
I am not saying that it is wrong to believe in anything that science cannot adequately explain - Shakespeare said, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio..." It's just that when we make major decisions based on belief systems which have not been adequately tested, we can do harm - to ourselves, our children, other people. But you can see how easy it is, to rip people off using a false belief system, merely well-packaged and plausible but without a shred of solid evidence.
Marg