NATPAT sticker range: Road Test

Can you really improve your child’s focus, or manage their ADHD traits, with a sticker? This company really thinks so...

Part of a big range: the ZenPatch stickers

WHAT IS IT? Great news for wishful thinkers! It’s a range of colourful stickers that promise to address all sorts of medical/behavioural issues with your child.

STICKERS? Yup. They’re imbued with essential oils, you see. Stick them on your child’s clothes and they’ll work their placebo effect, sorry, magic, in no time!!

SOME AT LEAST LOOK PLAUSIBLE. Yes,the SleepyPatch (mandarin, lavender, sweet marjoram, vetiver) might help at bedtime. And the StuffyPatch (eucalyptus, menthol) sounds sensible. But others in the range are straight out of cloud cuckoo land.

SUCH AS? The FocusPatch (cedarwood, lemon, bergamot, peppermint) for kids who are “falling behind in school” or have “low self-esteem”; the ZenPatch for general “mood calming”, which is also “perfect ... for managing ADHD traits or autism”; and the Sensory Touch Stickers (“works wonders in 98% of stressful situations”).

VERDICT: I’d like to apply my own Silence Sticker (patent pending) to the NATPAT people themselves. It’s a big piece of duct tape, slapped right across their chops.

From $21 (24 per pack), natpat.com