Indigo Child

[ms-sillyak-screwed]

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[Ursa Major]

Well, I read through the links, and I think most of it is utter nonsense. That makes me an Indigo child, because all they say applies to people with Asperger syndrome, too (which is, as far as I am concerned, just being different, not diseased, not problematic in itself, just different). I agree that it is wrong to put kids on Ritalin, for the sake of the adults, not the kids sake. But that is where it stops.

It seems that the children in every generation are different. That is because times change, everything is different I feel. So, why wouldn't the children reflect the changing times? And with all the additives added to foods, all the junk they are fed these days, why would it surprise anybody that kids are having problems?

[Fiddle-Faddle]

I agree with Ursula. Yes, children are born with their own personalities, but it is the parents' responsibility to love, nurture, and teach their children.

You might look up Nurtured BY Love by Shinichi Suzuki, who pioneered a violin teaching method in the 1950's that is still widely taught today around the world. His idea was that all hearing children are able to speak their own language/dialect fluently well by the age of 4 or 5--well before most children can read or write--because they have heard their language spoken to and around them correctly every day. So, he reasons, that just like being able to speak one's own language, it isn't a question of some kids having musical talent and some not. It's a question of what they are exposed to, how early they are exposed to it, how they are taught, and what kind of parental involvement they have at home.

His violin method starts by playing a celiac disease of beautifully played simple violin melodies every day for the child. They don't have to actively listen to it--they can be eating, or building with legos or coloring or doing homework. They learn it the same way they learn the theme songs to their favorite TV shows.

They are taught to hold the violin and bow correctly by a series of games (usually with toy instruments until they can hold them properly); every child I have observed learning this method seems to LOVE these games, even 8-year-olds. There are also games to teach them rhythms, by clapping, tapping, stomping, etc . Then they learn how to draw the bow to produce a nice sound, how to duplicate the rhythms with the bow, how to and how to place their fingers to reproduce the melodies, all without reading music. Because they are not worried about reading the music and having to translate that informatin to eye-hand coordination, they focus on making their little instruments sound like the beautiful music on the celiac disease.

The teachers are trained to run the lesosns in the following way: The child comes to the lesson, and the teacher lets the child start with whatever piece (that he was assigned) that he wants--and the teacher lets him play all the way through without interrupting, no matter how many mistakes. Then, the teacher finds something positive to say (even if all he can think of is, "Great! You made it all the way through!"). and then goes back to the beginning and finds one thing to work on.

I've observed about 50 hours of lessons, and I've never seen one of these teachers say, "No! No! That was WRONG!" They might pick up the violin and play the same mistake as the student and say, "Tell me what I'm doing wrong," and let the student find the error. Instead of saying, "your 4th finger is always flat, and that's wrong!" they might say, "If you move your violin more onto your shoulder, your 4th finger will be more in tune." It's an amazing method, and the teachers I've been lucky enough to observe could teach a parenting skills class!

The reason I bring this up is that there is a woman in Cleveland who brought this program to one of Cleveland's inner-city public schools--with ASTOUNDING results. The kids who are involved--all from very poor inner-city families--play incredibly well. I saw a videotape of them, and three of them played here in Pittsburgh, and they just knocked everybodies' socks off. And I was told that the kids involved in this program (Rainbow Suzuki Strings, I think) are all straight-A students--and none of them were before they started violin lessons. Some of them were considered slow, others troublemakers. One was nearly five years old and had never talked. One important factor--a condition of their being in the program was having one parent, aunt, uncle grandparent, or older sibling who would commit to coming to EVERY lesson (they had one private lesson per week, plus one group class where they played their pieces in unison and played musical games). If the parent (or whoever) didn't come (they had to make up or reschedule missed lessons), the kid was out of the program. And the parent had to practice with the child, every day, I think for the first year.

Sure, children are born with all kinds of different issues. (And many more issues are sprung upon them in the form of vaccines, gluten poisoning, etc.) But I really agree with Ursula here. I would also add that, with more working moms (and I'm one of them ), we see children who spend most of their lives in front of an electronic screen instead of communicating with other human beings.

One of my son's teachers put it SO well--I was all worried about his being able to keep up with the class, pay attention, fit in socially (he also has Asperger's), and she stopped me from wrrying ever again by saying, ""I don't care about a label. All kids learn differently from one another, even within the same label, so the label doesn't mean anything to me. It's my job as the teacher to find what works best for each particular student. If what I try doesn't work, I have to keep trying other things until I find something that works."

Substitute "parent" for "teacher" and "child" for "student," and that is now my philosophy, too.

Sorry this is such a long post. I gotta go pay some attention to my children now!

[Guest nini]

YES

[Canadian Karen]

I am really sorry if I sound close-minded in regards to this, but I have read those links and it seems to me that this is something that was thought up by someone who wanted an excuse for having extremely spoiled off-spring.

Children of Oz. Well, I kinda have a few of those, because they sometimes think I am the Wicked Witch of the North!

Hugs.

Karen