Aims and Beliefs

Our aims

Our overall aim is to protect children from emotional harm and to have a deeply transformative impact on their development and happiness.

This impact on a baby’s emotional and physical health – from conception – will have the same transforming effect on the family.  The ripples then spread into the local community and beyond.

A more detailed list is to:

• help build a firm base of love and security into children’s lives –  especially  during the first nine months in the womb and the ultra-sensitive first  three years.
• nurture their inborn capacity for wonder, creativity, kindness and cooperation.
• bring children closer to the natural world and to a sense of their connection  to it.
• encourage an awareness of the loving spirit in everyone.
• help children cope well with stress and difficulties.
• encourage children’s ‘heart intelligence’ – their inner strength, confidence and self-regulation – as they grow older.
• give support and healing to children suffering from grief and fear resulting from family breakdown or other causes.
• break the cycle of loneliness, helplessness and fear carried through from one generation to the next.
• prevent children being drawn into a culture of aggression and violence.
• counteract the corrupting effect of commercial pressures and materialistic values.
• protect children from violent and pornographic images and influences.
• reduce the stress experienced by parents and by teachers and to enhance their self-esteem, confidence and sense of fulfilment.

Our beliefs:

• every child and person is individual in his or her own right, unique in spirit and creative potential.
• parents deserve and benefit from greater opportunities to share valuable experiences with each other and so become part of a close-knit community that will support them and their children.
• this sharing and strength within the community is the key to reducing the violence in society.
• all children are valued members of the whole community – and are our shared responsibility.
• strong, loving support, as well as financial and practical support, must be there for all parents – especially for mothers – from the conception of their child.
• this strong support must continue throughout pregnancy and the first three years of every child’s life – the most vulnerable period of all, when babies’ and young children’s emotional and thinking brains are developing at such speed.
• how our food is grown and prepared and what families cook and eat together have a powerful effect on children’s emotional as well as physical well-being – and therefore on their behaviour.
• all children, especially those living in cities, feel their connection with the natural world, including wild places, so that they are able to grow up with this awareness in their lives.
• activities undertaken and enjoyed together help children to develop and build good relationships and joy in their own interests and achievements (activities such as singing, storytelling, acting, dancing, art, sport, caring for animals, digging and growing things and and any possible outdoor games and exploration.
• ‘extra’ activities such as yoga, tai-chi and meditation can become the bedrock for a child’s spiritual understanding and growth and have a profound effect on their self-confidence and self-control. Such skills as these can bless children with a sensitivity and empathy which may not otherwise have been absorbed, in full enough measure, from the adults around them.
• there is no hurt or trauma to a child which cannot be healed or transformed if even one adult understands what has happened to that child, believes in them, and is able to give them consistent and continuing support and affection.

Our understandings:

• all children have special vulnerability, sensitivity and wisdom (instinctive, inside knowledge of how things should be).
• they have special strengths, special energy, a special urge to grow in all ways – to create, to celebrate and to share their lives with others and with other living things
• and are born with the capacity for love and fulfilment.
• and that it is the quality of parental love that ensures the full and healthy development of a balanced brain – and its connection with the ‘brain-in-the-heart’ – of every child.
• all that a child learns about relationships, human values, responsibilities and behaviour in the early years – and particularly before the age of 3 – has a lifelong effect.
• finding greater confidence and happiness in ourselves as parents gives us a calmness and a surer touch with our children
• older babies and young children are as absorbent as sponges and learn most about being human – or less than human – by copying what they see and hear.
• children will always be the first victims of a disrupted, stressed society
• more children are finding it increasing difficult to learn at school or to make loving and lasting friendships
• children’s lives are increasingly invaded by hurry, worry, uncertainty and violence and this can make their behaviour erratic, aggressive and uncontrolled
• more children are finding it increasing difficult to learn at school or to make loving and lasting friendships
• children who have enjoyed a strong, loving and happy family life, and whose parents relate well to their teachers, reach a ‘peak’ between the ages of 9 and 12 in such qualities as openness, kindness, confidence, trust, honesty, generosity, helpfulness, creativity and a delight in new relationships, new experiences and new skills.

In a nutshell

Our work is designed to have an impact where it is needed most. It is for everyone who either cares directly for babies and children, or who cares about the way others treat them and teach them.