Ideas for teaching Tarot

If you decide to teach your child with a traditional deck, begin by purchasing your child her own deck. Remember that you should really never share a tarot deck, even when teaching. Now that your child has his own deck, begin by exploring the meanings behind the imagery. Don't worry about the actual reading bit yet, it's important the individual meanings and combinations are firmly understood first. Having accomplished this, let your child observe you do several readings, and discuss with her what the cards are saying to you. Be patient, as a child's understanding will be limited by his own personal life experiences and maturity levels, so all the deeper connotations will only become relevant to them as they grow older and more experienced.

If you decide to use a non-traditional deck, you can use playing cards, again ensuring that your child has his own deck, and that they are NEVER used for playing cards. Again, you would go over imagery and more as outlined above. Another way of teaching a child tarot with a non-traditional deck would be to have the child create her own deck of cards.

Your child would cut out or draw pictures that she associates the meanings with. These would be then cut out and pasted onto cardboard cut into card-sized pieces. This can actually shorten the process of picture/symbol association as it your child's ideas themselves that are taking form. Also, her personality would be already imprinted into these very individualised cards, thereby creating a possibly more open conduit to the magick being wielded. The rest of the lessons would be the same as for a traditional deck, remembering that intuition plays a large part, and that understanding that intuition takes great time.

No matter which method you use, the most important thing to remember is to be PATIENT. Just with any subject, the learning and understanding of the art will come in stages, and can possibly take years. If your child seems confused, slow down. Explore the meanings and imagery by finding examples in everyday life situations. This adds to a child's experience, and with experience eventually comes understanding. It is perhaps advisable with younger children especially to have them observe you reading cards for a long period of time, up to a year, with you explaining your thoughts as you go along. This will help them learn how to process the interconnecting ideas in a coherent manner when they later wield their own deck. At no time should you make your child feel that they are simply no good at it, no one masters the cards straight away and people have spent entire lifetimes exploring the nuances found within the cards. If your child shows no interest, try at a later time. Good luck!

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