Mission & Objective
Athletes call it the Zone, researchers call it Flow, children call it Play. Our mission is to help adults, parents, educators, childcare providers and amateur athletic coaches rediscover this Optimum Learning Relationship and apply it to parenting and to education. Our objective is to optimize learning, performance and well-being  by cultivating an awareness of the way "states of relationship" impact human development, at any age, in any field. We accomplish this by designing and developing appropriate learning opportunities which target the needs of different populations. Our goal is to bring about a deep change in the way adults view and relate to the developmental needs of children.  Change adult perceptions and behaviors and all of childhood changes with it.  Focus only on the child and we remain right where we are. 

Background & A Little Science
Why is focusing on the adult so critical? Maria Montessori described the "absorbent mind" of the early child. Jean Piaget noted that the life of young children is defined by an "unquestioned acceptance of the given". Learning is "state specific." By state we mean relationship. It is the actual "relationship" with primary caregivers that is accepted and remembered by the early child, without the benefit, or interference, of conscious discrimination.

Recent studies of developmental brainwave activity reveal that before birth and through the first five years of life, the infant/child's brain is generating primarily DELTA and THETA states of awareness, similar to a hypnotic trance (Laibow, 1999). DELTA (0.5-4 Hz) is associated with an unconscious, sleep-like state. Between two and six years of age, the child begins to express higher levels of activity characterized as THETA (4-8 Hz). THETA activity is the state we often experience in the morning, when half asleep and half awake. Around the age six the child begins to express higher ALPHA levels (8-12 HZ), a state associated with calm consciousness. BETA (12-35 HZ), associated with active or focused concentration and attention, doesn't make its full appearance until age ten or twelve.

Appreciating this "stage specific" development of the child and the "state specific" impact of the adult-child relationship helps in understanding the early child's "unquestioned acceptance" of adult behavior and why early imprints are so difficult to change. Our programs help adults bring about a fundamental change in their relationship with children, beginning with themselves, moment by moment.