Teaching Parenting Skills

 

     In the communities of Stelle and Adelphi everyone is educated about the needs of children for love, acceptance, positive role models, and social guidance. We look carefully at our own culture and compare it to other cultures in an attempt to strip down the societal biases to the end of finding out what is basic to human needs and human development. We are aware of the critical need for a child to have a healthy body, good nutrition, and a positive attitude. And, we not only train all adults in our two communities in the basic assumptions and techniques of our educational philosophy, but anyone who has a special skill or skills in any area is encouraged to actively contribute to the educational program of the children. The more consistently positive experiences a child has while growing up the greater is the likelihood that the child will have excellent social, emotional, intellectual and physical skills as tools to build a better self and a better world.

     For married couples planning to have children, additional in-depth education is given. They are encouraged to first establish a strong, stable, loving marriage. We ask both future parents to involve themselves with other children to acquire an accurate impression of the multifaceted realities of childrearing.

     Special emphasis is placed on deeper understanding of our own human nature so we can better comprehend the needs of all human beings and be sensitive to these in the children. Throughout our years of experience we have gathered a comprehensive reading list that will assist parents and potential parents in an on-going awareness of child psychology, child development, communication skills, discipline, nutrition and intellectual stimulation. When one is reading, discerning, and sharing new ideas in an open and supportive environment of interested friends responses to children are more likely to be conscious and with forethought rather than an automatic reaction.

     The importance of a serene environment for the pregnant mother has been addressed in a previous Adelphi Quarterly newsletter. Whenever possible, mothers have home births; and both parents experience a unique closeness with each other and their newborn during this important bonding phase. Prenatal instruction is available within our communities if a parent chooses this option.

     The first six years of life are the foundation for all intelligence. Most professionals now attest to this. Glenn Doman, founder of the Better Baby Institute, says that “When mothers discovered that they could not only teach their babies ... but could teach them better and easier at two years of age than the school system was doing at seven, a new and almost indescribably delightful world opened up—a world of mothers and kids, and the potential to change the world in a very short time and almost infinitely for the better.” The Brotherhoods concur with this fully. Thus, parents are the child’s most important and most impactful teachers. Given an understanding of the month-by-month neurological development of the brain and how children learn, the potential of each individual is much more likely to be fulfilled. Within Stelle, many years have been spent helping moms and dads with their preschoolers at home to teach the child reading by age three and writing by age four. In 1978, The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, in Philadelphia, PA, through its new wing—The Better Baby institute—offered its first course entitled “How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence.” A few Stelle mothers attended the course in 1978 (I attended in September 1979) and we instantly saw that the techniques evolved at the Institute fit Stelle and Adelphi goals and needs perfectly. Our incorporation of the Institute’s findings has made us even more effective in teaching children and optimizing their potentials. Stelle parents regularly traveled to Philadelphia for the course, and they immediately put this approach to work in educating their tiny children-

     The Better Baby program has proven to be much more effective than anything else we ye encountered. It’s more fun and easy to incorporate into a daily routine. It also seems to address the whole spectrum of human development including gymnastics, music, science, reading, instant math, foreign language, and what the Institute calls “Encyclopaedic Knowledge,” which covers anything you can think of to teach about the world. When I went to Philadelphia to take the course in 1979, I already believed tiny children had tremendous potential, but I quickly saw how I had vastly underestimated their ability. I learned how you can teach a child absolutely anything that you can present in an honest and factual way by presenting it in a nondistracting environment, quickly and clearly. In so doing, you actually build the neurological circuitry in the brain that will determine how well a person can assimilate and process information for the rest of his/her life!! The brain is a container with the truly unique characteristic that the more you put into it then the more it can hold. Its capacity, as it turns out, is for all intents and purposes limitless; so we can never put in too much. During a child’s first six years, information is absorbed almost effortlessly as long as it is offered with love and follows the interests of the child. Because we have found this program to be so effective and something that children and parents can really enjoy doing, the Stelle Adelphi Motherschool in Texas is coordinating the Better Baby course, “How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence’’ in Dallas, TX. We see this as an ideal opportunity to send more of our mothers to the course and to make available to everyone this fascinating course which we feel is very important to the world!

     So, we open our arms to you and invite you to join us in taking this course. The course runs five days, and each class is conducted in exactly the same way as the Philadelphia course by Better Baby Institute personnel. Please contact me for additional information so you can be sure to get a place in the April 17th to 21st course. This would also be a great opportunity for meeting members of Stelle in Adelphi in class and in the evenings by pre-arrangement. Let me hear from you soon so we can work together to help the next generation soar to the heights of their potential for human greatness.

 

 

 

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