0- 3 years

Natural birthing
Three years breast-feeding
until weaning
Unbroken body-contact (never put the baby down and leave it alone)
Three year sibling spacing (no spiteful sibling rivalry)
Active yet peaceful home-life
Infant tied to mom's body constantly observant of all that is going on
Penty of cuddling tickling and fun

All that good stuff
coming from parents who are profoundly conscious
of how easily mental and emotional dysfunction can take place
and who see parenthood as the most vital occupation on the planet.

The HeartStart program goes on from there......

i can't believe no one else has picked up on this thread as something very vital to human survival and wellbeing.

it's been gathering dust for almost a year- no wonder the human race is slowly dis-integrating.

hold on, MagnetMan!

Each of us experiences seven distinct changes of consciousness
between birth and death

0 - 3 infancy
4 - 11 childhood
11 - 14 puberty
14 - 21 teenage
21 - 42 stewardship
42 - 63 mastership
63 - 84 sagehood

Just as the Sun experiences sunspot cycles every eleven years
In its natural state
so too does our brain shift from left to right cortex predominance
i.e.
Between birth and puberty
we are intuitively right brained
during the teens we are analytically left brained

Each stage of developing consciousness
requires its own experiential stimulus

The HeartStart program is designed to tap directly
into our natural learning curve
and not prematurely interfere with the natural rythm

thus
between the age of 4 and 7
all learning is oral based
focused on developing the sharing ethic

Human intelligence is based
on paying attention to the needs of another throughout life
infants are selfish chimps
it takes a full seven years of endless guidance from parents
for a child to become fully open-hearted
the playground and arts and craftys room
are the best training milieus during this carefree period of child development
not an academic classroom

Home chores in the house and garden are assigned at age 7
A well super-vised chore-based work ethic develops the attention span
care about detail and moral contribution to the welfare of the communal whole
Daily cooking and creating in kitchen and workshop lay practical foundations
in the domestic sciences
Hiking and camping stimulate the geological and biological sciences
Oral based learning remains standard
Developing the budding intellect via script-based instruction
only begins after puberty
this "late" start on the books
avoids premature systematized indoctrination
and allows for a discerning intellect, founded on practicality
a more analytically matured base to accept or reject the value of text books

When I first introduced this revolutionary idea my family 20 years ago
of keeping a child illiterate for the first 13 years of life
everybody said my kids would end up intellectually stunted
the exact opposite has happened
at age 13 each one taught themselves to read in write at high school level
inside three months
they mastered standard text books inside three years
academically they are mostly straight A students
all are self taught with no more than a few hours of basic 1st Grade instruction
in grammar and arithmetic that any parent can give
they have achieved among the highest test scores in the nation
None has ever scored less than a B in any subject
I have certified government exams reports to prove it
Their personal ethics are exemplary

In this manner guided by BOTH parents inside the home
who's only qualifications as teachers need to be that of caring
and a basic primary school education
by age 11
the child is well prepared for puberty
and the significant change of consciousness
that rite of passage entails
including mastery of the text books
to university level

Is this a personal account of yours MM?

The Heartstart Home-school program
is the result of forty years of my own private research
in Africa and around the world
It incorporates all the basic family values
imprinted in the human gene pool
from the Stone Age onwards

It has been applied to all eight of my own children
over the past 20 years
with outstanding behavioral and academic results

I appreciate that such a radical break away from the current class-room based system
makes it hard for most people to comprehend
But the fact remains that the State education system achieves only 1% excellence
40% drop out
the rest is mediocre
with much cheating at exams
and it costs us trillions of dollars for such a poor performance record

Educating eight kids
at $7,000 per kid per annum for the standard twelve years
our family has saved the State nearly a million bucks
and have never received a dime for that effort

In my better moments
I fondly imagine all those trillions of tax dollars being invested in our families
giving parents the money and incentive to stay at home
and use their common sense with professional help from the internet
to raise and educate their own kids
the way Nature intended

This is not to mention fixing the unemployment problem for good
and cutting into the divorce rate by ending office romances
while improving State budgets with prime real estate sales
but that is fodder for another thread

Whether or not other home-school parents wish to adopt the Heartstart method
is up to them

I am simply sharing the common sense factors on child psychology
that made it work so well for us

Ver interesting.
Have you published anything on your methods and research?

Both parents staying at home, in current society, would be very hard. With maternity leave only paying £120 a week and only for a limited time, plus paternity leave is a maximum of 2 weeks.

MagnetMan wrote:

This is not to mention fixing the unemployment problem for good and cutting into the divorce rate by ending office romances while improving State budgets with prime real estate sales but that is fodder for another thread

How would this fix the unemployment rate if the majority of people aged 20-50 were raising children? They would be chosing unemployment.
Also, this ammount of people opting out of paid work would reduce the ammount of income tax paid to the goverment, so the idea of the tax being paid back to the families to support them would be impossible!

some amazingly good ideas, MagnetMan, keep this going.

11 - 14 years

PUBERTY

The are two physiological moments in life
when Mother Nature Herself initiates a distinct change of Consciousness
At puberty
when a child becomes sexually reproductive
and again at menopause
when a female becomes unproductive
and a male matures into fatherhood (ie among gorillas - becomes a silverback)

Except for the formal rites of barmitzvah among Jews
no modern education system takes advantage of the pubertal moment
formally recognizing that a vital rite of passage
once ceremoniously observed by our early ancestors
is taking place
and leaves it to pass by largely un-noticed and unexploited

All agricultural-based Bronze Age cultures
took full advantage of the pubertal moment
in order to cultivate and inculcate
a responsible adult - socially minded - attitude

Left uncultivated
uncontrolled promiscuity at an early age
would over-burden families with immature parents
unable to provide for their own infants

To begin with
the clans conducted ceremonial rites of passage
and initiated circumcision guild groups among budding males and females
The pains of circumcision operations and tribal scarring
had to be endured without complaint
in many cases individuals received a new name
and a new identity
males had to undergo wilderness ordeals
and trials of manhood
the initiation of a bride price
meant that females who lost their virginity
lived a life without clear social identity

I paid full attention to the pubertal moment
and the chance to initiate a clear understanding
of community commitments
while raising my children

As soon as the first semen ejaculation
and first menstruation was announced
they were given the option of a formal recognition
or simply have the moment ignored and forgotten
They were also given the option
of choosing to be called from then on
by a name of their own choosing

They all opted for making their rite of passage memorable
My eldest daughter, Jasmine, preferred her middle name of Katranne
and instead of Jazz, we have called her Kat ever since

Their heads were shaved
and they were sent into the mountains
to spend as many days and nights alone in the wilderness
as each could manage

If anybody tries a wilderness ordeal for themselves
at any stage in life
even for just a single 24 hour period
they will almost immediately recognize its psychological value
One is forced to recognize the treasure of human company
and the meaninglessness of life without it
and the longer one stays and struggles to survive alone
the more one appreciates and reveres the Ages of ancestral struggle
that helped to provide the modern comforts of home we enjoy today

The net result of my kid's wilderness education
is that they came down from the mountain
bearing within themselves indelible truths
about the values of themselves
their family
and their society
and not to take anything for granted

In short
I used the pubertal moment
to make them self-policed
personally responsible teenagers

Only then did I encourage them to learn to read
and study the accumulated wisdom of mankind


TEENHOOD

Studying for only two hours a day for three years
they mastered the high school text books by themselves
with no supervision from their patents
During the same period they helped to build up the family estate
from ground zero to what it is today
They took the national high school exams at age 16/17
and passed among the top 3% of scholars in the country
they have never given their parents a moments heartache

Though still only in their early twenties
each one is a truly exemplary god-loving human being
creative and fun-loving
and i am profoundly proud of them