Home is not only a place to share residence; it is a place to share life. It is an environment exquisitely fitted for carrying our personal relationships to the highest level of human meaningfulness.
Family Learning Centers
The skills of effective parenting are not hereditary — they are learned and must be refreshed with each new generation.
The process of intentional culture change begins with understanding the process of embedding the values of a culture, any culture. It begins in the family. In order to bend the culture of a nation or all of civilization we must begin by improving parenting and child rearing skills, knowledges, and values of parents. The very gradual decay of the moral standards of a whole society reflects the gradual moral standards that are taught and modelled by parents.
Family Learning Centers for Sustainable Nations provide an intentional organizational design for teaching pre-family individuals, parents, children, and grandparents the best practices of parenting and childrearing for each developmental era of an individual’s life. The goal is to prepare each new generation of parents with what, how, and when to teach their children to become socially competent, capable, and responsible; and that those children learn how to do the same for their own eventual children.
Because parenting and childrearing skills are learned and not hereditary, those skills need to be consistently refreshed with each new generation. A Family Learning Center in every school district of every democratic nation would provide initial and refresher training for parents, children, and grandparents. Parenting skills and childrearing skills prepare children to become responsible parents of their own families. When those skills also include training for using ethical and moral decision-making, those children will be far better prepared to enter into their society as socially competent, capable, and responsible adult citizens.
The essence of this paper lies in Chapter 2, “The Formation of Positive Selfhood and Best Parenting Practices.” (p. 15-24)
Read the entire text here.
1. The Couple Relationship.
The home life, with its conflicts and inherent challenges, is for the couple an experiential laboratory to improve human relations that from the home will spread to society and the world. To function acceptably as a couple in the home life, each partner must unselfishly seek the benefit of the other and together find a balanced satisfaction for them both.
2. The Parentage Relationship.
The parentage relationship is an additional function for the couple blessed with children. Even though a couple functions acceptably in a home life without offspring, the experience they bring is also primordial. Parentage is to raise children providing them with sustenance, education, and direction. Sustenance besides providing food is also sharing love, and a stable, welcoming and comfortable home environment. Education is not primarily a societal and state responsibility. Parents start it by providing the first human and spiritual values. A parental direction is the overall result of effective sustenance and education translated into spiritual values, moral standing and responsible direction for each child in life.
3. The Sibling Relationship.
Parental relationship with children is loftier and authoritative in home life. But the relationship between siblings is educative for individuals of equal position, teaching fraternity, solidarity, and reciprocal respect. The sibling relationship may feature some early competition, which is instrumental for each child in discovering identity and place in family life but should not continue into adulthood, often being replaced by loving and respectful friendship, as a direct result of a balanced distribution of loving parental attention among all their siblings. The sibling relationship allows many learning opportunities, both for children and parents. That should be taken into consideration by the couple on their deciding how big their family will be.
Family Learning Centers
The skills of effective parenting are not hereditary — they are learned and must be refreshed with each new generation.
The process of intentional culture change begins with understanding the process of embedding the values of a culture, any culture. It begins in the family. In order to bend the culture of a nation or all of civilization we must begin by improving parenting and child rearing skills, knowledges, and values of parents. The very gradual decay of the moral standards of a whole society reflects the gradual moral standards that are taught and modelled by parents.
Family Learning Centers for Sustainable Nations provide an intentional organizational design for teaching pre-family individuals, parents, children, and grandparents the best practices of parenting and childrearing for each developmental era of an individual’s life. The goal is to prepare each new generation of parents with what, how, and when to teach their children to become socially competent, capable, and responsible; and that those children learn how to do the same for their own eventual children.
Because parenting and childrearing skills are learned and not hereditary, those skills need to be consistently refreshed with each new generation. A Family Learning Center in every school district of every democratic nation would provide initial and refresher training for parents, children, and grandparents. Parenting skills and childrearing skills prepare children to become responsible parents of their own families. When those skills also include training for using ethical and moral decision-making, those children will be far better prepared to enter into their society as socially competent, capable, and responsible adult citizens.
The essence of this paper lies in Chapter 2, “The Formation of Positive Selfhood and Best Parenting Practices.” (p. 15-24)
Read the entire text here.
1. The Couple Relationship.
The home life, with its conflicts and inherent challenges, is for the couple an experiential laboratory to improve human relations that from the home will spread to society and the world. To function acceptably as a couple in the home life, each partner must unselfishly seek the benefit of the other and together find a balanced satisfaction for them both.
2. The Parentage Relationship.
The parentage relationship is an additional function for the couple blessed with children. Even though a couple functions acceptably in a home life without offspring, the experience they bring is also primordial. Parentage is to raise children providing them with sustenance, education, and direction. Sustenance besides providing food is also sharing love, and a stable, welcoming and comfortable home environment. Education is not primarily a societal and state responsibility. Parents start it by providing the first human and spiritual values. A parental direction is the overall result of effective sustenance and education translated into spiritual values, moral standing and responsible direction for each child in life.
3. The Sibling Relationship.
Parental relationship with children is loftier and authoritative in home life. But the relationship between siblings is educative for individuals of equal position, teaching fraternity, solidarity, and reciprocal respect. The sibling relationship may feature some early competition, which is instrumental for each child in discovering identity and place in family life but should not continue into adulthood, often being replaced by loving and respectful friendship, as a direct result of a balanced distribution of loving parental attention among all their siblings. The sibling relationship allows many learning opportunities, both for children and parents. That should be taken into consideration by the couple on their deciding how big their family will be.
4. Best Practices for Child Rearing .
It is important for child-bearing parents to research widely and learn the best practices of child rearing before conception occurs, during the time of pregnancy, and particularly the period of pregnancy and the first six to nine months of the child’s life. You are then setting the stage as parents to begin consciously teaching these best practices to yourselves, and practicing those best practices with your day old, your infant, your child, and youngsters as they grow up. The wonderful beneficial process is that the child learns these best practices, and as the parents teach these children the best practices, or practices them with the infants, they also learn the same things themselves, so the parents will have a positive influence on themselves from these best practices education.
5. What is the purpose of education?
What is the intention of public education? What is the intention of education as a social institution? The primary intention of any education setting is, first of all, to sustain the species. That means teaching everyone how to sustain the species. It will include morality and ethics, social conduct in organizations, personal and social conduct, family conduct, and so on. The second primary intention of education is to teach individuals and groups how to sustain the organized social existence. The first intention will support the continued existence of our species by using the four primary values of social and species sustainability (the values of Life, Equality, Personal Growth, and Quality of Life). The principal reason for the existence of the three secondary value emotions (Empathy, Compassion, Love for Humanity) is to sustain the social interaction of individuals, from the intra-action of each individual to the interaction of individuals and on to the social interaction of groups of people and of organizations. It is upon the shoulders of moral and ethical responsibility that organizations take on the primary work of sustaining the organized social structures of societies, nations, communities, and so on. Organizations have that responsibility because individuals are unable to do so, but moral individuals within organizations can have a highly positive influence upon the sustainability of organizations and the policies that organizations develop—whether they are governmental, corporate, private, public, or so on. It is important to see this whole matrix of sustainability involving the organizational sustainability of your communities and nations.
6. The Global Effect of a Moral and Ethical Population
By teaching individual families, individuals will take on the mantle of moral and ethical responsibility to make informed decisions and policies within their organizations. This completes the whole cycle within one generation, and particularly within two generations, in which societies can be transformed from impossibly unsustainable, and, in fact, on the cusp of disintegrating, to becoming materially and socially sustainable and responsible partners in earth’s community.
This is a process of eliminating war. This is a process of generating peace. This is a process of engendering social stability from the family, to the local community, to regions, states, cities, and nations.
It is important for child-bearing parents to research widely and learn the best practices of child rearing before conception occurs, during the time of pregnancy, and particularly the period of pregnancy and the first six to nine months of the child’s life. You are then setting the stage as parents to begin consciously teaching these best practices to yourselves, and practicing those best practices with your day old, your infant, your child, and youngsters as they grow up. The wonderful beneficial process is that the child learns these best practices, and as the parents teach these children the best practices, or practices them with the infants, they also learn the same things themselves, so the parents will have a positive influence on themselves from these best practices education.
5. What is the purpose of education?
What is the intention of public education? What is the intention of education as a social institution? The primary intention of any education setting is, first of all, to sustain the species. That means teaching everyone how to sustain the species. It will include morality and ethics, social conduct in organizations, personal and social conduct, family conduct, and so on. The second primary intention of education is to teach individuals and groups how to sustain the organized social existence. The first intention will support the continued existence of our species by using the four primary values of social and species sustainability (the values of Life, Equality, Personal Growth, and Quality of Life). The principal reason for the existence of the three secondary value emotions (Empathy, Compassion, Love for Humanity) is to sustain the social interaction of individuals, from the intra-action of each individual to the interaction of individuals and on to the social interaction of groups of people and of organizations. It is upon the shoulders of moral and ethical responsibility that organizations take on the primary work of sustaining the organized social structures of societies, nations, communities, and so on. Organizations have that responsibility because individuals are unable to do so, but moral individuals within organizations can have a highly positive influence upon the sustainability of organizations and the policies that organizations develop—whether they are governmental, corporate, private, public, or so on. It is important to see this whole matrix of sustainability involving the organizational sustainability of your communities and nations.
6. The Global Effect of a Moral and Ethical Population
By teaching individual families, individuals will take on the mantle of moral and ethical responsibility to make informed decisions and policies within their organizations. This completes the whole cycle within one generation, and particularly within two generations, in which societies can be transformed from impossibly unsustainable, and, in fact, on the cusp of disintegrating, to becoming materially and socially sustainable and responsible partners in earth’s community.
This is a process of eliminating war. This is a process of generating peace. This is a process of engendering social stability from the family, to the local community, to regions, states, cities, and nations.
“Sustainability is another word for justice, for what is just is sustainable,
and what is unjust is not.” –Matthew Fox, A New Reformation
and what is unjust is not.” –Matthew Fox, A New Reformation