Inside: How do you use oracle cards with children? Are there oracle cards for children, oracle cards for teens? Can children have tarot cards or a spiritual card deck? Spiritual cards. What are oracle decks good for? Spirit animal oracle cards. Nature oracle cards. Spiritual oracle card decks for spiritually aware children. Spiritual oracle card decks for teens.
“Can we work with cards today?”
About every third meeting we have with our mother-daughter meditation/journeying group, the girls ask about working with cards.
By now, they all have the spiritual card decks I use in our meetings at home.
However, there is a difference between working with the cards independently at home and us using them together.
My intention in this article is to share both why oracle card decks are amazing for children and also what we must pay attention to when using any type of spiritual cards with our children, whether oracle cards, animal spirit oracle decks, shamanic oracle cards, or others.
What is an oracle card deck?
An oracle card deck, as its name implies, is a group of cards carrying an intention for teaching or healing.
The intention behind any spiritual card deck is to have it work based on one’s intuition. It is intended to be a reflective tool.
Oracle card decks are not the same as tarot card decks.
Oracle card decks are not tarot decks. In all tarot cards, each card carries a specific meaning, regardless of the interpretation that the specific creator and illustrator added to them. Tarot has a clear structure, and there is significance to understanding the structure and meaning.
I do not recommend using any tarot deck with children.
Teens can learn the structure of tarot decks (however, I would recommend not before they turn 16, although this always depends on the specific teen and their maturity). I suggest doing so with experienced adult guidance or by exploring together, allowing as many questions and as much discomfort and disagreement as possible with the meaning the cards carry. On the one hand, tarot cards are archetypical, so we expect them to hold a shared global human meaning. However, many archetypes are not truly universally shared, or are only partially shared. Moreover, spiritually aware teens bring such beautiful wisdom. Often, some tarot card decks and their interpretations are linked to older paradigms of thinking. Hence, conversations, discussions, and empowerment of your teens that they know best how they would like to view the world are all crucial when working with any tarot deck.
Back to oracle decks….
Oracle decks are more straightforward. The meaning the cards carry reflects a certain perspective. Some focus on spirit animals. Others on the moon phases, goddesses, angels, shamanic archetypes, yoga poses, or abstract illustrations. Cards are so easy and often fun and inspiring to work with since the variety is enormous.
Beyond the wording on the cards (and more on this further down), the interpretation can be entirely your child(ren)’s.
Card decks crafted with the integrity of their creators carry powerful energy.
This means that when you pick up a card, no matter how you work with it (see my guidance below), the healing energy embedded in the illustration and meaning communicates with your energy field.
This also means that if a card deck makes you feel unsettled, do not use it. Many card decks are crafted with good intentions. However, if their creators are not fully attentive to the energy embedded in them, they can also carry unsupportive energies.
Old, used card decks sometimes retain the energy of their users. If the uncomfortable feeling comes from an old, used card deck, you can light a candle, rotate the cards above the flame for a few minutes, and then blow into the card deck with the intention of pushing out any energy held in the deck.
I always clear my cards before and after using any deck, especially if I use it with clients or groups.
Oracle card decks and spiritually aware children and teens.
Kids, children, tweens, teens, and parents all love using cards.
The cards often reflect something they already know—a confirmation needed to move ahead with the idea, understanding, self-acceptance, or action.
If misused, taking the cards only as they appear, simply accepting the wording and meanings shared in the booklet as is, they can actually disempower. The disempowerment happens because we give power to an outer source without co-creating or self-referencing.
The card said XYZ, so this is what I will do…
Self-referencing?
As you continue reading below about the guidance on how to use oracle cards for ourselves and with children, you’ll see that my personal recommendation is for us to look at the illustration or feel the energy and avoid running to the booklets for the interpretation (and yes! I know how hard this is).
I always guide the children and teens I work with to trust their own knowing.
Drawing a particular card is fun and inspiring. Yet, we select what speaks to us.
Often children, especially the younger ones in our group, don’t like the card they drew. I allow them to draw another, although the idea is to trust what comes. Then, I invite them to work with both or to choose one of the two.
The idea with cards is that they provide guidance. In parallel, we always wish to self-reference and select what is for us. Most card descriptions carry many meanings, and not all of them apply to our specific moment of drawing them.
In a way, this is similar to the retrieval of power animals. The same animal can appear for several children or teens. However, when we go on a journey, and the children or teens shapeshift into the power animal that appeared for them, they each experience a different quality that this animal carries.
For example, three children can see an elephant show up as their power animal. When shapeshifting, one would experience the quality of being large and noticed from afar. The second may sense the gentle nature of elephants, and the third may feel the community and deep connections between herd members. These are different qualities.
With nature cards, one can pull a card showing water. Water, too, carries many meanings. The offering of water differs when it is a waterfall, rain, a river, a large lake, or a sea. It may come as mist, clouds, or tears. Water can invite a cleanse, and/or the a nurturing and hydrating of our physical body, and our energy with the nourishing energy of water.
What’s the right guidance?
The only one who can answer that is you! Or the one who picked the card…
Cards for children and teens
One of the most significant challenges with all spiritual card decks/oracle card decks for children is that there are also words in addition to the illustration on the card.
Cards are a symbolic tool. Symbols communicate with our psyche and energy at the level of our soul’s journey. Words awaken the mind.
Once children can read the words, a significant portion of the gift offered by cards is gone. They are immediately attracted to the meaning provided by the word.
In my groups, we give much attention to avoiding the wording. With time, they learn to put the card by their heart and focus on the illustration and its detail. Then, we journey, draw, or journal around those details. Sometimes, we have a round of sharing. Often, we just sit with our cards quietly. Knowing that we focused on the energetic message that came.
(Please share if you are familiar with a good card deck for children or teens that does not include words!)
Nature oracle cards for spiritually aware children
In my work with children and teens, I use only nature oracle cards or spirit animal oracle cards.
The natural world is rich, and its symbols are accessible to children and teens.
See the card decks I use HERE.
Spiritually aware teens
Children grow so fast. Teens can experience the deep wisdom card hold. Their level of reflection is at a whole different level. I enjoy conversing with them about the messages they see within the cards and admire how they apply it to their life while self-referencing.
As teens grow, they are more and more able to learn about the various archetypes. While archetypes are partially from older paradigms of interpreting the world, with many largely influenced by Western perspectives, the natural world is still there and shared by all.
Learning the meaning and symbolism of each animal (including the different attributes from different cultures and geographical regions), and of the elements and earth itself, is essential as part of their understanding of the world they walk in.
How do you use oracle cards with children and teens?
This is also guidance for parents, especially beginners, in using cards.
Step 1: Shuffle the card deck.
Step 2: Blow your intention into the deck.
Step 3: Spread the cards in front of you, in a half-circle, a line, or scattered all over, with their backs facing up.
Step 4: Sense which card or cards your hand is pulled towards. There is usually a feeling of delicate warmth or just a hunch that this card, and not another, is the one for you.
Step 5: Pick that card (or several cards).
Next…
Step 6: Don’t open the booklet explaining the card’s meaning.
Also try to avoid reading the words on the card.
Step 7: Observe the illustration as a whole or connect to one or two small details.
Step 8: Go on a short shamanic journey to better understand the energetics of the small details that caught your attention or open your notebook and draw/journal about them.
Step 9: You can also sit with the card by your heart, slow down your breathing, and allow the message to come through energetically, not through your mind.
Step 10: Only after you received the message for yourself, by yourself, self-referencing for yourself… should you look at what the booklet offers. Always! Always! Trust that what you noticed on your own is more precise and aligned with your personal journey.
If working in a group, share and reflect aloud only after all members have gone through their personal processes of understanding the gift, knowledge, or offering the card conveys.
Questions to bring to an opening of cards
With children and teens, I prefer staying with a general question.
Specifically: “What do I need to know today?” or “Can I please receive guidance about (general topic).”
As they grow, more specific questions, such as “Can I please receive guidance about (specific topic)?” can be included as their ability to self-reflect evolves.
Using oracle cards as inspiration for mythical healing stories.
One of the most beloved activities in my groups of children and teens is to draw a card from one of the card decks we work with and then write a story.
The stories usually reflect the message the card came to offer. Sometimes, they take the young writers on an additional journey.
Read more about mythical healing stories
Creating your own card deck.
Creating your own card deck is something people of all ages enjoy.
A personal card deck can include the symbols that a specific child or teen relates to. If they are afraid of snakes, they don’t have to have a serpent in their animal or general card deck. Such card decks are usually a mix of themes, from natural settings and animals to angels and dolls.
This is a flexible tool for adding new cards and removing cards they no longer relate to.
How?
- Use some type of cardboard (paper is too thin).
- Cut it into even pieces (rectangles in the size of common cards, squares, circles, or smaller: it’s your/their card deck); prepare some extras for future additional cards.
- Place a sticker or draw a similar shape on one side of all the cards, creating the uniform back side.
- Close your eyes, and see the first symbol, then draw it. If drawing is challenging, you can use the help of someone else, or print the picture of that animal and copy it or glue it to your card.
- Close your eyes again and visualize another image. Draw it on your card.
- Continue visualizing the symbols you want in your card deck and preparing the cards until you have enough (the one creating the card deck decides on the number; there are no rules).
- Start working with your card deck.
A shared card deck can also be created by the whole family or a bunch of friends.
Different spiritually aware families use cards in various ways; please share your family’s experience in the comments below.
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