Something so simple yet so magical – from an Irish brand, no less – is helping one little boy’s worries vanish.
Seven-year-old Rylee has suffered from anxiety – more so than mum originally suspected. He has autism along with a sensory processing disorder, he wasn’t sleeping at night, and spent much of the daytime feeling anxious.
It’s so easy for adults to assume children don’t have worries – what stresses could they possibly have? But what seems trivial to us often means the whole world to them.
For example, Rylee’s mum, Rox Davis, explained recently how he would stress about all the bad things that could possibly happen to him or his mum.
“He would worry constantly. He would worry that I was going to die and that he would be on his own… He worries about people looking at him, people laughing at him.”
But enter the Worry Plaque – produced by the well-known Irish Fairy Door Company – and suddenly Rylee is feeling much better.
The panic and stress subsides dramatically when the boy places his hand on the interactive plaque; there he lets the fairies take away all of his anxieties and frustrations. As the light turns from red to green, Rylee’s outlook would change completely.
Rox explained:
“The first time we used it he slept all night, and although that’s normal for some children, it’s not for him but he went off quite happy and slept all night and that for me just said everything.”
With so many children tackling anxiety, we’re glad there are fairies fluttering about who can lend a helping hand where needs be.
The Irish Fairy Door Company began sending fairies from Ireland all over the world back in 2013 through their magical fairy doors (€19.95) that can be set up anywhere, from homes to schools and playgrounds.
Since then the company has been a huge success and a major hit with celebritity mums such as Kourtney Kardashian, who revealed her little boy Mason’s blue Irish fairy door last year in her Snapchat story, and Michelle Heaton who treated her little one Faith to a day of fairy enchantment for her birthday. Clearly the fairies are waving their magic wands all over the world, helping children everywhere in such a beautiful way.
The concept of the fairy doors came about when two childhood friends, Niamh Sherwin-Barry and Aoife Lawler, were visiting upstate New York and brought home two very cute wooden doors for their children. This was just before the recession hit and little did these women know that what they had in their hands would propel them to come up with a much needed clever idea years later.
Overtime and after creating countless great stories about the fairies (€12.99) that live behind these miniature doors, an idea was born – the Irish Fairy Door Company. With the help of their husbands, Oisín and Gavin, the four parents were on their way to establishing the mega brand across the globe.
Today the Irish fairy doors, along with oodles of accessories, fairy miniatures, charming wall art, and of course the Interactive Worry Plaque (€24.95) are available far and wide. The company now has distributors in Ireland, the UK, the US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates, ensuring children across the globe can experience the magic that fairies bring to them, especially in times of need.
