The purpose of this thesis is to present the concept of indigo children and investigate how the professionals in kindergartens recognize it or know about.
The concept of indigo children is not scientifically proven, but there are several theories and records of indigo children. Children of this time are different from previous generations. They come to this world with a specific purpose and capabilities that are easily recognizable from their birth onwards. Various authors describe indigo children as very sensible, creative, curious, responsive and clever. I compared the characteristics of indigo children with characteristics typical of the different theories of intelligence. I came to the conclusion that indigo children express characteristics that are recognized within the specified theories of intelligence as the characteristics of children with certain specific intelligence. I also compared the characteristics of indigo children with the characteristics of gifted children and children with special needs. By comparison, I discovered that indigo children are exceptionally gifted as they show above-average characteristics of gifted children. However, this cannot be confirmed due to the fact that the concept of indigo children is not acknowledged and in practice not researched enough. I could find fewer similarities indigo children and children with special needs and come to conclusion there are some individual indigo children who may also have specific needs, every child with special needs does not yet classify as an indigo child.
The aim of the research was to establish how the kindergarten professionals interpret the concept of indigo children and whether these children are being identified as such through their pedagogical work. The survey included 145 professionals, working in kindergarten. According to the professionals, the generations of children in the past five years have changed significantly. I compared the answers of respondents about indigo children with the characteristics of indigo children quoted by professional literature. There are many similarities among characteristics; however, the most frequent characteristic is that the new generation of children is more intelligent. According to the professionals, working with children is nowadays more difficult than five years ago. The majority of respondents have heard of the concept of indigo children, but they do not know it or they are poorly informed about it. Most of the professionals believe that the indigo children are being by characteristics more similar to the gifted children than to the children with special needs. However, the majority believes that the indigo children are an entirely new group of children. It is believed that lower norms in kindergarten groups should be applied for the children of today's generation, thus more individual work.
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