THERE is nothing guaranteed to keep a mother on her toes than introducing her baby to someone who claims they are able to read her wee one's mind. With Derek Ogilvie, the psychic who is also known as The Baby Mind Reader, about to arrive on my doorstep, I was on my best behaviour in front of my ten-month-old son.
"Talk me up, Junior," I told him. "Tell the Mind Reader I'm a perfect parent and don't mention the time I dropped you on your head. Say everything's great and there's an extra feed in it for you, OK?"
Reading babies' thoughts is Ogilvie's speciality. We are not talking reading body language, child psychology or any of the other ways of working out what our wee ones are thinking which are backed by scientific study. We are talking thoughts.
A respected Scottish medium for several years, Ogilvie some time ago discovered another unusual gift while giving a young mother a private reading. Ogilvie realised that her three-week-old baby was sending him strong telepathic messages about the family's life together. Passing on information from child to parent, he explained why the baby was having trouble feeding. Once the parents understood, they made changes and a difficult situation was eased. Soon, Ogilvie began to believe that "it was pretty obvious that many babies had this ability. Babies could communicate telepathically if the conditions were right and they had something to say."
So, he started helping children with medical problems and sleeping, eating or crying issues, and, according to reports, had a good level of success. Boy, was I was ready for his visit.
Sleeping and eating were both areas in which I needed help with Junior. Just weeks from his first birthday, my son was still treating solid food with such suspicion that mealtimes had become a battleground. His sleeping patterns were also very erratic and I was desperate. If a stranger chatting telepathically with my baby would help, then I was game.
Mine and Junior's encounter with Ogilvie followed the format of Baby Mind Reader, his reality television show for Five, which begins on Monday. Ogilvie was to visit us at home, telepathically communicate with Junior to discover our problems, offer some suggestions and then return a week later to see if we'd improved. It sounded so simple, but, in practice, it wasn't. Ogilvie began by pacing up and down the room, eyes closed and without making any physical, or eye, contact with me or my son. He reeled off a vast string of informational snippets and questions, many of which meant little or nothing to me, others which he could have safely predicted would mean something to many women in my position. Did I have a sore finger? No. A sore shoulder? Yes. He suggested I was still suffering from some gynaecological issues relating to the birth, which was true, but so do many mothers.
Later on, I observed to Ogilvie that Junior's information was unexciting. But then Ogilvie said my baby was relaying something which happened when I was seven months' pregnant. "He's showing me movement. There's fluid around him and he's being moved and he's saying to me: 'What the hell was that?'" I laughed at this, but Ogilvie wasn't amused. "It's not funny. It's not been explained to him and it's scared him." It's absolutely true that, as a foetus, Junior did experience an unusual movement in the womb at seven months' gestation (a mechanical intervention), and Ogilvie could not possibly have known that, but what did that have to do with anything now? Apparently, quite a lot. According to Ogilvie, this fear of being shaken and shifted was the reason Junior was not settling at night and I needed to reassure him. "What's important for your child may not be important to you, but you should still respect them. Talk things through, put yourself in their shoes. It's all about mutual respect."
He accurately pinpointed Junior's typical waking times and suggested that I "take some quiet, relaxing time to talk the incident through with him. Like before he goes to sleep. Explain there's no need to panic and that it can't happen again. Do it in a non-patronising way and, remember, keep the words simple, so he will understand."
I asked why I should keep my words simple when Junior obviously understood such a lot of complicated things already? "I get shown dramas in my head. The child doesn't have to know the words, or what they mean. He just gives me a repetition of the words.
"In a situation like two parents arguing, I don't hear the child's voice, I hear a man's voice and what he's saying, and feel the mother's fear, because the child is showing me exactly what happened between them."
I needn't have worried about Junior telling tales on me, because he remained extremely elusive for Ogilvie. The mind reader admits he has trouble communicating with around 25 per cent of babies. He concentrates on children who can't speak for themselves - the very young, or those with medical problems which make verbal communication impossible - but sometimes, they aren't forthcoming. "I'm only the messenger," Ogilvie said of Junior. "If the child communicates, I can give the parents information to act on, but, if not, I have problems. If your child won't tell me anything, I can't help."
So, what is he actually experiencing when he mind reads a baby? "I open up a part of my mind to the energy that comes from the child. And I say telepathically to the child: 'Look, I can communicate with you if you want to open up to me'. Some have an amazing ability to send me pictures. Then they'll also send me feelings and build up scenarios. With Junior, I can't build the picture."
But he was still sanguine about our meeting. "You might not be able to put all this together [the jumble of information] but that doesn't mean it's incorrect. One of the reasons I know I'm reading the child's mind, and not the mother's, is that there is information in some instances that the mother knows nothing about."
Ogilvie claims one of his proudest moments was when he helped a Dumbarton family come to terms with their little girl's disability. He relayed medical information from her that nobody else knew, not even her doctors. After Ogilvie's reading, she was proved to be right and her family's treatment of her changed fundamentally.
Junior regarded the Mind Reader with surprise and slight alarm at first, but then carried on playing, apparently oblivious to the growing frustration in the room. After three exhausting hours, Ogilvie gave me a five-point plan.
I had my work cut out. The sleeping issue seemed straightforward enough - just keep talking and explaining things. Ogilvie also accurately pinpointed the eating problem and suggested I put Junior's food into smaller containers and feed him little by little, rather than from one, big bowl. "There's too much on the plate and it's scaring him."
Ogilvie also identified that, like many small children, Junior hates being put into his pram. "He wants to walk and be independent. Be in control," he announced. But how, when he's only ten months old? "Before putting him in the pram, hold him upright beside it and explain to him that one day, he'll be big enough to walk. But, for now, it's best for everyone if he rides in the pram." According to Ogilvie, Junior also made a request for more liquids to be made available at mealtimes and, finally, the real surprise: he wanted me to make him a soft toy. This toy had to be made out of a piece of my clothing that smelled of me. It had to be teddy bear-sized, sausage-shaped, and have eyes. I also had to make it in front of Junior, so he could be part of the process.
Ogilvie departed, shattered, and declaring his interaction with my child to have been "the hardest experience ever". He even wondered if Junior was doing it "to wind me up". Knowing Ogilvie would be returning to check up on our progress was quite a motivator, so, I reached for my sewing kit, followed his instructions and six days later, we met again. I had good news and bad news. The feeding tips had worked. Junior actually yelled for more after eating the smaller portions I had given him, which were not enough to fill his belly. It was wonderful to see him enjoy the food which he would have left if it had been served in one big bowlful.
But the pram scenario was embarrassing. Talking to a small baby like an adult was difficult, especially since I often got stared at while doing it. "If you're not positive, he'll pick up on it and he'll go off on one," warned Ogilvie. "Parents have to be consistent."
Embarrassing or not, Junior is definitely calmer.
"Do you see your son in a different way now that you're explaining things to him more than you did previously?" Ogilvie asked me. Strangely, yes. It makes me see him as more of a person in his own right and less as 'my child'.
As for the liquids, there was no change at all, but the cuddly toy was a winner. I'm no needlewoman, but the huge smile on Junior's face when he saw it made the hassle worthwhile.
"I know some people will think, well, that's obvious, it's something soft that smells of Mum - a security blanket, whatever," Ogilvie said of my handiwork. "And, yes, I've been able to stand back and look at a situation and come up with a solution, but the proof of the pudding is when I come up with something absolutely crazy."
Indeed, while it would be easy to dismiss some of what Ogilvie says as general statements on which mothers simply transpose their personal interpretation, there is no denying that sometimes he hammers a very random nail on the head.
In his forthcoming television show, his strangest moment comes when he is communicating with a 21-month-old with huge behavioural problems. "She was constantly projecting an image of a boiling kettle into my mind, but I didn't understand." After three difficult readings, it transpired the child was showing a representation of a phrase her mother used, saying her violent partner had "a temper like a boiled kettle".
Unfortunately, no such breakthrough could solve Junior's sleeping problem. Despite my patient explanations of his uterine upset, Junior's night-time waking got worse - due to a bad bout of teething. That's nobody's fault, but there's been no improvement. It was interesting to get Ogilvie's personal attention, but I wondered if the TV show could be an adequate substitute for a one-to-one meeting. "Absolutely," says Ogilvie. "I'm sure there are lots of mum and dads who'll get ideas about how to solve situations with their own children. It's about looking at your baby from a different angle and being honest with your child. I'm hoping that people will start looking at their children in a different way and that it'll open people's eyes to how babies see life.
"I'm always being asked to do readings, but I can sense when someone really needs help. I prefer to work with children who have serious issues. I want to use my gift for people who really need it. I don't charge for readings because I feel that I've been given this gift, so I'm giving something back.
"Anybody can get in touch with me through my website and I'll help anyone who has major problems." Quite an offer. Ogilvie could easily have used elementary child psychology to reach his conclusions, but, given his refusal to observe Junior in any way, I'd say that was unlikely. And while it's true that some of his suggestions might have been made by any health professional, in my case, they quite simply weren't. His basic advice is sound for any parent: respect your child; talk to them; be positive and sensitive with what you say and do in front of them. Put like that it's not at all mystical; it's common sense. But, if you have a real problem with your child, I feel you could do worse than listen to The Baby Mind Reader.
? Derek Ogilvie's book, The Baby Mind Reader, is published by HarperElement at ?7.99.
? Derek Ogilvie can be contacted at www.derekogilvie.com
? The Baby Mind Reader broadcasts on Five at 9pm on Monday 19 June.
Source: http://living.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=877502006
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
