Day 7: Graduation March 28, 2010

Yesterday marked the completion of our 7 day journey for the “How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence” course.  Graduation day.  Back in my working days, I attended numerous workshops to develop my skills – from leadership to programming WonderWare.  At the end of those courses, I received a little paper, certifying I attended the class.  This graduation was a very formal event – Janet Doman and Susan Aisen, our  two main instructors for the week, were in robes.   We were accompanied to the podium, walked across the stage, and after we received our diploma we shook hands with the entire staff.  Most of us were in tears as we walked across the stage.  I’ve walked across a stage 3 times in my life – high school, college and graduate school.  Actually, I think I received my graduate degree in the mail, I didn’t want to waste a Saturday for a ceremony.

I wouldn’t have missed this opportunity for the world.  I learned more in the last 7 days than I did in my last 7 years of post-high school study.  I learned something new every single day, and this new knowledge will continue to be used every day for the rest of my life.  My MBA degree is hanging on the wall of our office.  I’m not quite sure where my undergraduate degree is.  I plan on getting my degree from the Institutes framed and giving it a place of honor in the office.

Although I was happy and excited to come home, I felt deep sadness when I walked away from the Institute for the last time.  Within those walls are some of the most caring, passionate, intelligent people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.  The instructors, who are all staff members at the Institutes who developed the techniques, did something so subtle it took us several days to realize what they were doing.  They used the same principles of teaching little children to teach us.  They presented only the facts in a loving, exciting manner.  They showed us great respect throughout the week, reminding us that we were the best parents in the world and there was no better teacher-student combination than us and our children.  They never lingered on a topic for too long, but they presented clear information.  They gave us plenty of time to ask questions.  The funny thing is, when we would ask questions, instead of just spouting out the answer, they would gently lead us to the answer, to make us feel as if we figured out (which we indeed did).  By the end of the week, we were all experts in childhood development.  We went from being “just parents”, to people who were knowledgable in how the brain works and how to help build its capacity.

This is the basis behind the idea of how to teach tiny babies how to read, do math, learn a foreign language, etc.  You present the facts.  You do it in a loving and enthusiastic manner.  You remind that baby that he is already a genius, by far the most wonderful, amazing person you have ever met.  You help build their confidence.  You listen carefully to every question and always give them the path to find the answers.  You keep up with their speed of learning and respect them every step of the way.  If we were this confident after seven days, imagine how your child will be after three to six years.

If you are still contemplating whether or not to read the books, take a chance and pick one up.  If it doesn’t touch your heart immediately, put it down and don’t worry about it.  If you feel a spark and are intrigued, consider taking this course.   Here is my last quick story and I will end this marathon post –

When you speak to Glenn Doman in the hall, he isn’t a man of many words and he speaks very softly.  But he conveys so much to you with his eyes and smile – you feel his excitement because he knows what is in store for you, you feel that he is truly grateful you took the time to learn so you can then teach your baby, you feel love and compassion.  He is in his 90’s.  Age is catching up to him and you can tell he tires easily.  And yet, every morning, bright and early, he came to our lectures.  He would sit in a chair and read from his cards.  If you have read any of the Doman books, they are written very conversationally, so even though he read from the cards, you didn’t feel like you were being read to.  And the energy and passion behind the words. . . if you weren’t looking at him, you wouldn’t know he was reading. 

Anyhow, there were two women in our class who complained on the 3rd day – “This is such a waste of time.  I’ve read all of the books, I don’t need someone to read the introduction to the books at the beginning of each day.  They would save so much time if they just eliminated the first 2 hours of class.”  Needless to say, the rest of us were shocked and enraged by that statement.  I held my tongue because I realized, these girls are here for the wrong reason.  They are looking for someone to give them a recipe.  Their goals are not the same as ours – we are looking for a way to allow our children to reach their full potential, they are looking for a way to make sure their child meets all the right requirements to perhaps get into some fancy preschool.  The Doman way of teaching will never give you a recipe.  They will give you the why, the facts – it is your job to intuit the how to.  Even then, every single person is going to come up with their own program for their child, and it will work because it is unique to that child.

There are very few true innovators in this world who are so willing to share their knowledge.  Most times, when we learn something, it has been watered down and changed over time.  It is rare to learn something from the true source.  You can take a child development class at any hospital where a nurse or some other expert hands you a pamphlet and gives you step by step instructions.  This was no watered down class.  This was like learning the Theory of Relativity from Albert Einstein or getting a lesson in architecture from Frank Lloyd Wright.  If you don’t understand how lucky you are to be sitting in that chair in the auditorium, you don’t belong there.  Needless to say, those two women didn’t come back after Thursday.

Final, final note, and then I promise, I am finished.  I keep talking about this course as a program, and how to develop a program with your children.  What you are really learning is a lifestyle.  You are implementing changes that will change your lifestyle.  It is like trying to lose weight.  You can follow some 10-day program and see a change, but it will only be temporary and you are less likely to stick with it.  Everyone knows, to improve your health, you need a lifestyle change that includes how you eat, how you exercise, how you live.  This is what we learned this week.  It is a lifestyle change where you not only feed your baby’s body, but also his mind.  You plan his intellectual diet as carefully as you do his nutritional diet, and execute it with the same enthusiasm and regularity.  Only then will you be successful, and only then will you realize how easy and fun it is to multiply your baby’s intelligence.

Day 5: From an empty plate to an overflowing pile. . . March 26, 2010

Today’s course covered “How to Teach Your Baby to be Physically Superb.”  Prior to this course, I purchased this book because I was curious – what do the “brain” people know about physical fitness?  Does learning math and reading at a young age make a kid more fit?  Little did I know, I had it completely backwards.

I realize the stereotype of “dumb jocks” and scrawny nerds make this program seem a little absurd.  But physical ability, as it turns out, not only builds muscle but it helps build the brain, especially at this young age when our children’s brains are growing so rapidly.  I won’t go into the science of it because I could never explain it as eloquently as Glenn Doman or the staff at the Institutes.  To get a brief summary, check this out.  It is a little difficult to understand (another reason I bought the book), but once you realize what it is saying, it is rather simple.

Some of what Doman proposes makes sense, because parents have been doing these things forever.  You know how the dads love to take their babies and toss them in the air, or have you ever taken your toddler by the hands and spun him around in the air like a helicopter?  It turns out, our instincts were onto something – allowing our babies to experience different positions in space and testing their balance by spinning them or bouncing them help grow the part of the brain responsible for things like balance and coordination.  But because the brain is so interconnected, when you grow that piece of the brain, you are also improving capability for the other feats, like language and vision.

If you’ve been researching the Institutes, you may have come across some criticisms of what they do.  One of the things they propose in this book is keeping babies prone (on their bellies).  This is in absolute contradiction to the “Back to Sleep” Campaign.  Again, I don’t have the space to get into their details, but I will tell you it all makes perfect sense.  By putting babies in a more natural position, all of their seemingly random motions (the waving of arms and legs when they are on their backs) suddenly become useful.  Did you know that a newborn baby can crawl?  It is possible – it happens in some other cultures the minute that baby is born.  The amount of stimulation and learning that occurs when a baby is on its stomach is so powerful, it makes keeping a baby on their back (or in a swing, bouncy seat, etc) and only allowing them 10-15 minutes a day of “tummy time” seem like punishment.

For each session, we get to observe parents with their kids who attend the school at the Institute.  Usually, we see what it looks like to apply what we are learning with our kids.  Most of the physical demonstration did just that – we observed a mom doing the passive balance program with her 4 month old (which the baby loved to no end!), we saw another mom doing the active balance program with her 2, 5 and 7-year-old kids.  But the tear jerking, eye-opening part was the big gymnastics routine at the end, where all of the kids at the Institute, ages 4 to 13, performed together.  And while there were some kids who looked like miniature Olympic hopefuls, if it weren’t for the mixed ages, it could have just been a group of kids from any local gymnastics school.  What was so amazing?  These were kids who:

• We had met earlier in the week – kids who were reading Shakespeare at 5 years old (with complete understanding and loving it as much as most 5 year olds love Barney).
• Learned this 10 minute routine in 2 weeks, meeting only twice a week for 2-3 hours.  We were told at a normal gymnastics school, it takes kids about 6 weeks to learn a routine, practicing 4-5 days a week. 
• Not only love gymnastics, but they are all amazing swimmers, seasoned runners, bikers, hikers etc.  And they do most of these other activities with their parents and families.

The emotion overcame most of us when we realized how much our children are capable of.   These kids have learned the great joy of using your body in the way it was meant to be used – in motion, not plopped in front of a TV.  Their brains are filled with information that will be useful to them for the rest of their life.  What is even more moving is that the families are doing these things together with their children.  Ask the kids what some of their favorite activities are, and you will hear them talk about going on 6 mile bike rides with their dads, or running 3 miles a day with their moms, or going hiking with the whole family. 

This is the kind of life that most parents today only dream of, or at least I do.  When Moose turned 2, we started getting bored with our daily routine.  I will admit, there were days when I would stare at the clock and say, is it seriously only 1 o’clock?  then I started counting down the minutes for Ben to get home.  Now, armed with so many ideas for ways to enrich our lives both mentally and physically, I am worried that there aren’t enough hours in our waking day!  This past week, I brought my empty plate to the most amazing buffet table, and it is piled high.  We still have a day and a half left.  Guess I better grab a second plate 🙂

Day 4: Math vs. Candyland March 25, 2010

Today was a very interesting day.  The topic of the day was “How to Teach Your Baby Math.”  I had previously attempted to start this program with Moose, but he wasn’t that interested.  The whole concept behind this book is that babies can do instant math.  By teaching them the simple facts (in this case using big, red dots), babies learn what “one” really is – a quantity, not a symbol that stands for a quantity.  In the program, you teach a baby quantity first, THEN you teach the numeral (“1”, “2”, etc.)  Our problem is, Moose has been identifying numbers since he was 15 months old, and has been counting (or pretending to, before his speech caught up) for several months.  So sadly, when I show him a card with 15 dots and tell him it is 15, he does what any person would do – he tries to count the dots.  I figure I will try the dots just a few more times, but after that, we will move on to equations.

So what is the point of teaching a baby math?  It seems ridiculous, right?  It isn’t like they are going to use it while they are playing blocks, right?  Well. . . they might not NEED algebra when they are 4 years old, but again, if you can learn it so quickly and easily at that age, doesn’t it just make more sense to go ahead and do it?  

For each topic we cover, we get to observe parents teaching their babies and children.  One mom had created a giant 10 x 10 grid, with the numbers 1 – 100 (the kind we used to see in school).  She created a game where she started a number pattern, and her daughter finished it.  Then she created a game where she came up with a final number, and her daughter got to pick any two numbers that added up to that number.  The kid was jumping around, laughing, hugging her mom each time she came up with an answer, obviously having fun playing this “game.”  Did I mention this kid is only 4 years old?  When you see what kind of “games” kids are capable of playing, it makes Candyland seem so, well, childish.

Day 3: My mind is racing with ideas for Moose. . . March 24, 2010

Completed day 3 of Doman’s “How to Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence” course.  Today’s topic was “How to Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge.”  Sounds absolutely crazy, right?  But like everything I have learned this week, it is so simple, it is crazy to NOT try. 

The basic idea is to feed our little babies’ insatiable appetite for knowledge by giving them real information.  When the baby points to a car, you could say, that’s a vroom vroom!  a better thing to say is,  that’s a car!  If you are willing to drop the baby talk, why not go ahead and tell him what is really is – that’s a car, it is a Cherry Red Classic Porsche!  You’ve not only expanded his vocabulary (whether he is talking or not), but you have introduced him to the real world.  Instead of giving him the same answer each time he points to a car, you are peaking his interest even more.  He will want to know every car. 

I use this example because when Moose was just learning to talk, he would clearly say “ball” when he saw a ball, “Riggs” when he saw our cat, but for the longest time, he would say “Vroom vroom” for car.  Now, I know what you are thinking, but I swear I never told him a car is a vroom vroom.  But I would make the sound effects when we were playing with cars.  From 11 to 14 months, he was spouting words left and right.  Except for “car”.  For those who know me, you know my last name sounds like “car”.  We would joke that when he grew up, he would say, “Hi, I’m Moose Vroom Vroom”!

At 15 months, he started consistently saying “car” and pointing them out.  But he would pause when he saw other vehicles.  He quickly learned the difference between a car, truck and SUV.  I knew then to give him those little facts.  Based on what I learned today, I know he will probably go nuts when I teach him within those categories, there are even more names!  He is a Disney Car fanatic, and when we saw a black Porsche in a parking lot recently, he said, “Look, there’s black Sally!”  And we said, yup, it’s a Porsche, just like Sally.  So now, my little Moose knows what a Porsche looks like and points them out (not that we see that many where we live!)

After class, I bought two more books from the series – How To Multiply Your Baby’s Intelligence and How To Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge.  To most people, it seems crazy.  Some might think, why is she wasting her time?  Moose is smart and is already reading words, is that not good enough for her?  Or others think, is she trying to create some kind of superhuman, baby genius who is going to be “superb” to all other babies?  

To answer that, I would ask you – what if someone gave you the chance to easily learn 100 new facts in a matter of days?  What if someone told you there was a 6-year period in your life, that if you did a few quick exercises for mere minutes a day, you could dramatically expand your knowledge and brain capacity?  Wouldn’t you jump on a chance to do that?  Well, to me, the obvious answer is yes.  And that is what I am doing.  I am taking that 6 year window (which if you haven’t already inferred, is from birth to age 6) and giving Moose this amazing gift.  He enjoys what we are learning so much today, and I imagine that 20 years from now, Moose could be a car aficionado, and he will appreciate that it all started with a little red car named Lightning McQueen.