An Interview with Alan Wilson

By Colin Whitby

Editor’s Note:-

I met Alan at a gathering in London this year and was taken with his story of how he has set up a network of support for children and their parents. I found this truly inspirational, and to some extent speaking with Alan has helped me formulate some of my own ideas for the future.

Colin – When did you first come to the realisation that a change of direction was in order, and how did that come about?

Alan – When I was in Advertising and Marketing I realised, whilst on a family holiday, that I no longer wanted to work in that way. I decided to become a Marketing Consultant and found that I had much more time, and it was during this spare time that I started learning Tai Chi. My Tai Chi teacher recommended that I went to see a friend of his who helped me clear some energy blockages, and this left me with such an amazing clear energy. It was after this that I had a session with a life coach where I realised I wanted to put something back, and if it could be to do with children that would be a bonus.

I went to a life coaching weekend, and found that the way I had been working in the past was quite harmonious with the life coaching approach, and I really liked the idea of helping people find their potential. As I had become interested in spirituality I thought it would be an idea to develop this, and I met a spiritual life coach who helped me realise that my passion was to wholistically develop millions of children globally.

My first thought was, how am I going to do that?

Colin – I think this is where many of us get to, but few then take the next step. Where did you go next?

Alan – I was drawn to inner city areas where it is tougher for kids and I soon found that any child with a problem had a parent with a bigger problem. There was no point me helping the kids if they were going to go home to the same environment and not be able to practice their new learnt skills. I then started doing some life coaching with parents which gave me a new perspective, and again I realised that it is no good just helping the children and their parents, there is a need to help the schools and the environments around young people.

I began to be aware that children had so much more to give if we surrounded them with a suitable environment.

So whilst I am happy to work with young people and families, I also want to create an infrastructure to help educate people throughout the country and the world. So far I have set up a web site http://www.developyourchild.co.uk/, made a DVD Kids are really different these days, written a book Listen to your Children and am now setting up a network of coaches throughout the UK, we already have one in Singapore, one in New Zealand, someone in France and possibly someone in Denmark. I’m also in discussions around joint ventures in Australia, New Zealand and possibly Canada and the US.

Colin – On your site you mention Indigo children, how did you get involved with them?

Alan – It was during my life coaching that I realised the importance of intuition, and as I started to study this I discovered Indigo children, and it occurred to me that the parents of these children were having bigger challenges that those of regular parents.

Then met Suzy Miller in the States who showed me how to connect with these children energetically, and from there we were able to help the parents to understand what was going on and coach them to support the children in the way that Suzy did.

So my understanding and belief is that all the terms like Autism, Aspergers, ADD, ADHD, Indigo, Crystal, Rainbow – they are just labels – all I really want people to do is see children as the wonderful magnificent beings that they really are. I think before that can happen parents need to see themselves in a different light.

As a result of this work I have set up another organisation, The Energy Alliance http://www.theenergyalliance.com/, which is a group of energetically aware coaches, therapists, practitioners and teachers who are exploring a belief that as people we are here to assist our children to grow and contribute whilst on this planet. If we are able to co-create an energy-based connection with them, they can teach us as much as we can teach them.

Together we bring a new way of working to anyone who works with children, be that as parent, teacher, therapist, coach or simply friend. This new way encompasses energetics, consciousness, potential and the discovery and unfolding of our children's gifts as a contribution to our world.

We have monthly teleconferences and have interviews with people who have a specialism in a particular area. This work culminated in a conference during November of last year (2006) which was captured on DVD. I also recorded some interviews with kids about their experiences with energy, telepathy and other subjects and this DVD Kids are really different these days is available now from my web site.

So whereas I was previously worried about speaking out about energy openly, particularly to local authorities and places like that, now I have incorporated all this thinking into my new web site Develop Your Child http://www.developyourchild.co.uk/

Colin -– Yes I understand what you mean, I had similar discussions around what to put in this web site, and some of the material is certainly challenging the old ways of thinking.

Alan – Yes it is a risk, and I probably speak to a lot less people, but the ones I do speak to it is just phenomenal.

Colin – Have you noticed that the children of today have different problems to the ones we may have grown up with, such as isolation from spending so much time on computers or the internet, and that the parents do not know how to help them?

Alan – The first stage of this is to re-assure the parents that they have done a good job at being a father or mother, despite the fact that their children may not listen to them or appear to respect them. What they need to do then is understand why the kids are different these days, they are highly sensitive emotionally, physically and energetically, their feeling of isolation and their lack of social skills that have been born out of that isolation.

So it is the environment they are in now that creates this situation and society has created it in a wider perspective. So I encourage parents to see themselves as wonderful, creative and whole, and when they can do that they can then start to see their kids in the same light.

Wherever I talk to young people and they say there are not listened to, they are not valued and not respected I hear the same thing from their parents and the same thing from their teachers. It is the adult who has to be the role model, it is they who have to make the change. I have found through this process that parents are able to have a completely different relationship with their kids. When they start to value and respect their kids and they start to get that back, this is when the whole family dynamic changes.

Colin – I notice that you are now looking to bring others into the arena as coaches, how is that going?

Alan – A coach in Singapore signed up for the Develop Your Child Family Coach training programme in March which lead me to look more closely at the material and as a result I completely re-wrote it and went over there to support her to understand the material, some 81 files. This has kicked off a kind of explosion of interest in the Family Coach training programme which is now going phenomenally well.

Colin – And what does the future hold, what areas are you interested in developing?

Alan – One of the projects I am working on at the moment is the Ethos Empowerment Programme, where I am hoping to get support from lottery funding, and this is a pilot where we intended to work with students, parents and teachers to create an Ethos of Empowerment around young people.

This is similar to the work we have done with the Develop Your Child Foundation http://www.dycf.org/, which was formed to enable the self empowerment programmes of Develop Your Child to be extended into families and the wider community.

So there is plenty going on for the future.

Colin - Alan thank you very much for such an interesting insight into your work, I wish you success in all that you do.