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November/December 2010 Spirituality
Is Your Child Psychic or Spiritually Gifted

By Sara Wiseman

What do psychic abilities look like in children?

If you’re the parent or caretaker of a child who’s showing emergent intuitive abilities, you’ll want these answers — stat! But before we delve into the what’s and how’s of intuitive abilities, there’s something that you need to know. Basically: Psychic development and spiritual giftedness are the same thing.

In other words, if you head down the path of psychic development long enough, you’re going to become spiritually aware. And if you head down the path of spiritual practice long enough, you’re going to become psychic.

What do psychic abilities look like?

Eager to know if your child has psychic or spiritual gifts? It’s customary at this time to provide a quiz for you to take. You know, something along the lines of:

1. Is your child sensitive?
   

   a. Yes. Even his clothing labels itch him (30 points).
   b. Somewhat. He gets overwhelmed by the crowd when we go to World Wide Wrestling (15 points).
   c. No. He is entirely unflappable, lives on a diet of M&M’S and Red Bull, and is never, ever affected by his environment (0 points).

You see where I’m going with this. I don’t want you to answer a lot of questions, guessing on some or fudging on others to get a higher score (don’t tell me you won’t!) and then frantically adding up the total and tossing your kid into a little box labeled “Lotsa Psychic Abilities” or “Kinda Psychic” or “Not Particularly Psychic at All, I’m Afraid.”

There is more to the souls of our beautiful, glorious children than tallying points on how psychic or spiritual they are! What’s more, kids’ skills are developing as they grow. They might have one kind of psychic ability now, and a new ability next year. Once a child begins to open to intuitive abilities or spiritual knowingness, their abilities continue to open (and open, and open!) So where they are now may not be where they’re going to end up.

For example, one month ago, Margaret might have shown no clairvoyant ability at all, and now she might be easily able to see “movies in her head.” At Christmas, Trina may have been obsessed with Santa, but by February she might have received a message from her grandmother, who died four years earlier.

Opening, awakening, emergence — it happens quickly.

10 Core Psychic Abilities

That said, your child is likely to develop in some key ways. Here’s an overview of what I call the core abilities. Remember, there are no points to tally here, no grades to hand out, no birth years to consider. Just take a look, and see if any of these abilities match up to what you’ve noticed about your child.

1. Clairsentience is the art of psychic feeling. Basically, a clairsentient child feels everything. She picks up energy from a crowd, at the grocery store, in a hectic classroom. She may feel energy over distance (knowing Grandma has the flu — even if Grandma lives 2,000 miles away). She may “just know” stuff, such as “That’s not a nice man” or “That dog is lost.” Clairsentients may also have the ability to hold objects in their hand, and to tell you about the owner or history (psychometry).
2. Clairaudience is the art of psychic hearing. If your child is clairaudient, she will hear things — unfortunately, this does not mean she will hear you calling her for dinner! She may hear via spirit guides, angels or other entities. For younger kids, this may show up as an imaginary playmate. She may hear in her “mind’s ear.” She may also hear music.
3. Clairvoyance is the art of psychic seeing. If your child is clairvoyant, he will be able to easily see what he might call “pictures in his head” or “movies in his mind.” He might see images in his mind’s eye or that are symbolic — for example, seeing an image of the metal bars of a jail if someone is imprisoned. Visions, premonitions, going to a place and saying he’s already “seen” it before also apply.
4. Mediumship is the ability to communicate with those who’ve died. For kids, this can either be really cool (I saw Aunt Martha yesterday) or really awkward (there’s a ghost in my room). If your child is a medium, she’ll need support — it can be tricky when you are being contacted by spirits from other realms.
5. Channeling is the art of receiving via another entity. Channels move themselves aside in order to receive from the collective consciousness of the divine, which may show up as a spirit guide, angel or other teacher. Channeling may be verbal, as Esther Hicks does with Abraham. It also may appear in channeled writing, music or art.
6. Remote viewing is the ability to see things that are far away, as if you were there in person. Kids who are good at this can have a career working for detective agencies! You might also think of them as your little “finders” — they’re the ones that everyone in the family calls to ask, “Where did I leave my glasses?”
7. Astral projection. If your child tells you she went to Mars that night, you might as well believe her. Kids who astral project are able to move their consciousness to different places, while their bodies stay put. Astral projection can also be related to shifting or traveling across time, including past life regression.
8. Energy healing is the ability to use energy to heal via hands or distance. If your child is an energy healer, she will want to rub your neck when it hurts, and can find the exact area that aches without being told. She also may be able to sense illness in the body as a medical intuitive.
9. Spiritual advancement is the gift of deep spiritual knowing. You’ll find this in the child who can tell you about where we go when we die, what spirit guides are, what Jesus or the other great spiritual masters really meant. These children will amaze you.
10. Other abilities. If you can’t determine your child’s abilities in the above categories, consider the idea that our children are evolving beyond the abilities we’ve had in the past. Who knows what we are capable of?

Sara Wiseman is the author of Your Psychic Child: How to Raise Intuitive & Spiritually Gifted Children of All Ages and Writing the Divine: How to Use Channeling for Soul Growth & Healing. Visit www.sarawiseman.com.