THE CRYSTAL CHILDREN

By Doreen Virtue, Ph.D.

Several mothers told me their Crystal Children appreciated the extra attention home schooling provided, and the kids’ vocabularies grew as a result.

Still, there are many ways to communicate. Many parents commented that their children created their own form of sign language. One woman said her child went through deliberate motions to teach her this self-styled way of communicating so they could understand each other. Kelly Colby-Nunez says her youngest children prefer to communicate through drawings "My children (ages 6, 4, and 15 months) prefer drawing to speaking and will spend hours doing so. My six-year-old also told me that he often communicates with his friends without talking."

Perhaps one reason why Crystal Children speak later than previous generations is that verbal speech is foreign to them. This is what Sue Jalil suspects about her four-year-old son, Sean

"Sean’s very telepathic, and his speech was late in developing, so late that he had a grommet put in to help him hear better. It’s only recently that he’s managed to overcome some of the speech difficultly. Even now, though, some letters are very hard for him to form. I believe that this is his first time on planet Earth, and that to use his mouth and tongue to communicate is very foreign to him, where in the past he was just telepathic. By the way, the grommets made no difference whatsoever."

Many parents and doctors suspect late-talkers have a medically based hearing problem. Penny said that both her daughters didn’t talk until they were three. She had both girls’ ears tested, which revealed their hearing was fine. Penny says she hadn’t really been worried, though

"Something told me the problem wasn’t with their hearing. My instincts told me my children just didn’t feel an overwhelming need to talk yet. My oldest seemed to have a language all her own. We didn’t understand what she was saying, but she was talking all the time. And with both girls, I always seemed to know what they wanted or needed."

Penny says her biggest challenge with her Crystals was how others perceived them. She recalls

"People would ask my kids questions about things, and they wouldn’t answer or didn’t know. There are certain expectations when people talk to a child that age, but my children didn’t fit those. For example, I would try to teach them how old they were or where their nose was, and they were totally uninterested in learning these things."

Penny remembers feeling embarrassed and judged when her children wouldn’t answer people’s questions. She recalls that the baby-sitter turned her in to Children’s Protection Services because her daughters didn’t talk much and were barking and pretending that they were dogs.

Like many Crystal Children, Penny says her daughters’ motor skill development was right on track, but their verbal skills lagged behind, in comparison to the norm. Yet, when each girl reached the age of three, they suddenly opened up and began speaking normally. Penny says, "I never had any doubt that they were bright kids. I have to keep reminding myself that it’s okay that my children are different. They’re going to be very special people. I just know it."