Should Children Have Tarot Readings?

As a child, I was very interested in the paranormal, but I didn’t fully get interested in tarot cards until I was about 14. It started when my mum bought the Tarot of Marseilles deck, and I began playing around with them. I didn’t think much to the imagery, and I struggled to memorize the card meanings, I had to keep checking the little booklet that came with them. My mum kept getting the death card whenever I did a reading for her, so she soon became annoyed with them and I ended up keeping them for myself.

After the death of my dad, mum began visiting psychics, mediums and tarot readers on a regular basis. She started taking my little sister and I to psychic fairs. I remember getting a tarot reading when I was 14, it was the first one I’d had, and I didn’t think much to it. My mum swore by this guy, she said he was the best, but he didn’t have much to say to me and seemed to base his reading off my appearance and mannerisms. Recently, I’ve been thinking about that tarot reading, and I wonder if maybe it wasn’t very good, because I was just a kid. I had no career, no love life, no real problems and I didn’t need to worry about finances or relationships. It was supposed to be a general reading, but apart from reading what kind of a person I am, or what kind of a person I’m going to be. There wasn’t a lot to go on or talk about, I didn’t really have a life. Sure, he could have picked up that I was depressed because my father had recently passed away, but I already knew that, and no message from the tarot could change that. Only time could heal me, which it did.

A lot of tarot card readers insist that a client must be over 18 to receive a tarot reading. It makes sense in some ways because as a society, we like to protect our children. Fortune telling and tarot cards are sometimes considered to be evil or demonic in our western society. There’s also the problem of a child being told something by a tarot reader that could disturb them, and then the tarot reader could lose business. Finally, online tarot readers are likely to refuse their services to under eighteens because it is assumed that children and teens don’t make their own money.

I have personally never performed a tarot reading for someone under 18. I have never specified that I will only do readings for adults, but that just seems to be the way it has been for me. When I imagine what kinds of things a young teenager would ask in a tarot reading, it makes me think that maybe it’s for the best that no young people have come to me.. after all, I was a teenager once, and I was a completely different person from the person I am today. It doesn’t seem necessary for a child or teen to have a tarot reading, they are ready to go out into the world and discover who they really are. A tarot reading isn’t going to help them do that, they will do it all by themselves. When life starts to get more complicated and confusing, and when you have to make huge decisions, then a tarot reading becomes an interesting prospect that can help and guide you. This doesn’t usually start to happen until you’re at least in your late teens and early twenties.

In conclusion, if a teenager wants a tarot reading, then fair enough, they should definitely get one. It’ll be fun for them, enjoyable and they might learn a few things about themselves. Is it important for a teenager to get a tarot reading? probably not. It is important to remember that every person is unique, and every situation is different. Some teenagers might be under a lot more stress than others, some may have very real problems! and I don’t just mean problems like trying to get their crush to notice them. For some teenagers, a tarot card reading could be very therapeutic for them, and could help them with the difficult situations they might be in. For most teenagers though, asking the tarot whether the boy they like, likes them back might seem like a waste of time, since a lot of what happens during childhood and adolescence is temporary. I look back on the boys I liked in school and cringe. I imagine most adults look back at the boyfriends and girlfriends they had in school, and wonder why they got so upset when they broke up. I suppose the conclusion is, yes teenagers (probably not children under 12) should be able to get a tarot reading if they want one, however they’re less likely to need one.