Quite possibly the next bible for parents who are looking for new ways to engage with their children that are healthy and meaningful.

Luvmour gives the reader a thorough history of child psychology and development and then breaks childhood into three developmental stages. Parents can get a new perspective on their children and real insights into how to change family dynamics.

This book offers no short cuts or quick fixes and that is what makes it so great. It helps the reader address all aspects of childhood and helps us look at some of the more challenging facets of children's lives in a new and positive light.

Rather than trying to ignore difficult behaviour or label it as something negative, Luvmour helps the reader get to the root of it accept it as natural and help the child through tough times, Many adults are not comfortable with negative emotions and the author gives us the tools to make a real shift in our lives that will assist us in raising our children in an emotionally healthy home.

Optimal Parenting has amazing insights into all stages of childhood; particularly helpful are the chapters that help parents understand the challenges of adolescence and the transitional stages of childhood, The chapters on academics, spirituality, social justice and divorce and blended families are so useful readers can use this book as a reference for many years to come.

– Michele Dennis, Kindred Magazine

Geoffrey "Ba" Luvmour suffered food allergies as a kid, but no work ever was done to identify a food culprit. In his 20s, Luvmour did the work; he experimented with different diets and eliminated the troublesome foods. Now 59, he's not suffered since. In Luvmour's mind, families that struggle to be a healthy unit composed of healthy individuals struggle unnecessarily—like he had with undiagnosed food allergies.

Just as Luvmour figured out which physical nourishments didn't jibe with his body's needs, family members must provide one another 'developmental nourishments,' he says. In so doing, 'it's like creating a healthy immune system,' a system that functions beautifully and continually without the need for 'palliatives,' says Luvmour, considered a pioneer in the field of whole-family experiential learning and also a father, new grandfather and national and international speaker.

How does one—and how does a family—strengthen its so-called immune system? Luvmour and a growing number of individual and group adherents to Luvmour's philosophies, believe Optimal Parenting: Using Natural Learning Rhythms to Nurture the Whole Child (Sentient Publications, 2006) holds not the answer, but many different ways people can arrive at their own right answer for their children and their families.

The Crux of the Book

'I have read many of the parenting books out there, and this one stands above the rest,' says one reader in Luvmour's hometown of Portland, Ore. 'It doesn't just address problems or difficulties, but instead offers concrete examples and beautiful ways to nurture the well-being in my child, in my family, in society and in myself. I found this so refreshing. It offers great narratives, examples in case-history form and really easy-to-understand tables that help tie everything together in one place.'

Luvmour, who for nearly 25 years has steeped himself in fields including child development, family dynamics, anthropology and even quantum mechanics, says at the crux of his newest book is the delineation of four developmental stages of childhood. Each stage represents a way the child organizes his world, and that child's parents must nourish—not fight against or try to alter—that place. Only then can optimal well-being be established in the child and, thus, in the entire family.

'Bringing well-being is the quickest, most powerful way to get to family well-being and to remedying dysfunction,' Luvmour says in a phone interview from his home. He adds that total success, however, does not come quickly—especially when considering Luvmour believes childhood stretches from conception to 23 years of age.

Natural Learning Rhythms: The Four Stages

Natural Learning Rhythms (NLR)—working with the child during the developmental stage he is at—helps define Luvmour's four stages of childhood. 'Natural Learning Rhythms goes beyond just safeguarding the child and making sure they become productive or creative members of society,' Luvmour writes in Chapter Two. '(NLR) helps each family member hit their notes at just the right time, so that the family and the community can be creative and inspiring.'

With that definition in mind, here is a synopsis of each of Luvmour's stages of childhood:

BodyBeing occurs from conception to age 8 1/2. Children in this first stage of childhood are very touch-oriented and thrive on knowing they're in a secure, warm environment. Luvmour recognizes that while most parents intuitively, frequently and gently touch their babies and toddlers, it's more challenging to keep this up as kids become school-age. So flexibility is key. 'Loving touch, in its widest meaning of both physical and psychological sensations, is the most important nourishment for the BodyBeing child,' he writes in Chapter Five. 'However, its form must be modified continually as the child's perceptions and abilities change during the stage.'

A child next transitions to the FeelingBeing stage and remains here until roughly age 13. To Luvmour, this is one of the most critical periods and yet most neglected by parenting and teaching authorities; very little is written about kids in this phase. This is the phase, he says, where kids are on the precipice of learning social and interpersonal skills and about communities. In Optimal Parenting, he emphasizes the importance of mentoring kids ages 9 to 13. (Luvmour bridles at the term 'preteen' and believes it condescending to kids this age.) Mentoring helps foster these kids' budding senses of justice, fairness, caring, concern and adventure, not to mention their deepest need: trust. 'FeelingBeing children seek the company of adults, older children and, to a lesser extent, peers who feel trustworthy,' Luvmour writes. 'It is not what is said, but how one feels, that is known.'

Next up is IdealBeing, characterized by growing children's need for respect and to be treated sensitively, especially by peers. Paradoxically, teens from 13 to 17 also crave independence and new adventures and challenges. So while they're driven to have exciting, novel experiences that help define who they're becoming, their reputations are vulnerable in others' eyes. According to Luvmour's book, 'under the aegis of autonomy and freedom, IdealBeing children project ideals and construct identities. This is at once an imperative and fragile process.'

And last, as kids hit college-age and early adulthood, they become ReasonableBeing, characterized by their recognition of commitment, equality, achievement and recognition. From ages 17 to 23, children desire interconnectedness (such as falling in love) and gain a sense of humility and the power to recognize. 'The recognition of the capacity to recognize fortifies the ReasonableBeing child to engage one of the most perilous and potentially valuable investigations any human will ever undertake: finding the meaning, purpose and substantive value of oneself and one's world,' Luvmour writes.

In Optimal Parenting, Luvmour writes at a very high level; he's given decades of thought to his principles and arguments, and fleshes them out in great detail and at length. (One chapter, for example, is titled, 'Ontological Epistemology.') And yet he wants his philosophies to be accessible to all. Many individuals and leaders of organizations find hewing to Natural Learning Rhythms in workshops, at seminars, on retreats and even one-on-one with Luvmour provide the perfect connection between Luvmour's written words and the practical applications of them.

Luvmour's Philosophies Help Families...

Laura Wall Mansfield, 33, who was introduced to Luvmour's parenting philosophies by a friend and who now helps promote his writings and work, acknowledges Luvmour's prose can be complex. 'But I think it is accessible for everyone if they can take the time and have the impetus to understand and follow the advice,' says Wall Mansfield, a Portland, Ore., mom and social sector consultant and adjunct professor at Portland State University. 'I do think the workshops are really popular because they are experiential, and that is one thing that a book can't give you. Families oftentimes learn extremely well under those conditions.'

(Luvmour offers his panoply of services on a sliding scale; for more information about them and EnCompass, a nonprofit organization founded in 1985 by him and his wife of 29 years, Josette, click here.) Wall Mansfield, her husband, Todd Mansfield, 38, and their son, Connor, have attended Luvmour's retreats, and Luvmour has helped them more effectively deal with their BodyBeing son, she says. For instance, since giving NLR a shot, Connor rarely throws tantrums anymore. 'I think it is because we allow the anger, and [we] stay there with him through it so it doesn't escalate into a full-blown tantrum,' she says, offering the following dialogue they've used in a specific situation:

Connor now "has started to say things like, 'Mommy, Daddy doesn't want to play baseball right now and that makes me really angry,'" Wall Mansfield says. "I say, 'I would be angry too if I really wanted to play. But right now Daddy doesn't want to play, and we need to respect that. Although, it is OK for you to be mad, and I will stay right here with you while you are angry.'"

Of course, life often gets more complicated with older children and in families with a more complex structure. The Hackett family has found working with Luvmour has made their once-dysfunctional family a more harmonious one. Neala Hackett, 41, and her husband, Shane, 42, of Parkville, Mo., have five children in their blended family. Two children are from Shane's first marriage; a third is from Neala's first marriage; a fourth is Neala and Shane's own child; and a fifth is adopted from China. 'Our focus is on the health of each and every individual within our core family, as well as the health of our interconnectedness,' says Hackett, director of investor relations for a publicly traded company.

Hackett and her husband couldn't reach their eldest, 16-year-old Christian, who in his years-long anger had retreated into his music and sports and away from his other family members. In a one-on-one setting and over time, Luvmour helped the family understand Christian's developmental stage (IdealBeing) and thus his 'needed nourishments' to improve Christian's daily life and that of the family, Hackett says. 'We are still learning to use Ba's technique of 'inquiry without judgment' to get to know him better and to help him begin to know himself,' Hacket says.

..And Organizations

A growing number of organizations—including those working with families, school-age children, athletes, healthcare professionals and other groups—from Vermont to Missouri to the West Coast have adopted NLR into their curriculums and for use in training seminars. One such organization, Self Enhancement Inc. (SEI) in Portland, Ore., is incorporating the NLR approach to child development into one of its programs to benefit youth and families. Gerald Deloney, SEI's director of program advancement, says he thinks so highly of NLR because of its totally child-focused—rather than adult-focused—theories on child development. "For me, NLR is structured in a way that gives insight and direction on how a child organizes [his or her] world at different stages of development, which makes this approach 'child-centered,'" Deloney says.

SEI works with the same kids for nearly 17 years—from second grade through age 25—so continuity, through and into each stage in these kids' lives, is essential. "Adopting a sound developmental approach was and is key for achieving our organization's ultimate goal of cultivating 'positive contributing citizens,'" Deloney says.

Focus on Well-being

Luvmour says parents are mired in worry over whether they 'mess things up' at home and in their children. He implores parents to stop this cycle and instead give his NLR a chance, a chance to create well-being in your kid's current developmental moment and thus, eventually, well-being in the family whole. 'If you bring that in – creating well-being – many of our wounds can be healed,' he says.
--Jenn Director Knudsen,Preteenagers Today

– Jenn Director Knudsen, Preteenagers Today

Optimal Parenting captures the rich essence of Ba's extensive and successful work with families and young people. As he and his associates have demonstrated repeatedly over the course of many years, the Natural Learning Rhythms approach honors what is truly whole and human within us, and enables adults and children to grow and learn together joyfully. This book shatters our society's misconceptions about human development and gives parents and educators a new perspective that is as refreshing as it is powerful.

– Ron Miller, author of What Are Schools For? Holistic Education in American Culture and publisher of Paths of Learning Magazine

This is no handy, hip-pocket quick reference guide to parenting, but is a remarkable, extraordinary work embracing a very wide knowledge tempered by the wisdom of years of experience. The Luvmours have brought us a unique and invaluable insight into the child’s mind and development which is every bit as valuable for the opening it simultaneously offers parents concerning their own personal understanding, abilities, and life-responses. By striving to be an optimal parent as outlined here, a new world can open for the parent as well as the child. The Luvmours’ concept of rhythms of learning goes beyond Piaget and fills critical gaps, while the various 'typing' of children's personality-learning styles is original, fresh, and enlightening. May this work be widely read and closely followed.

– Joseph Chilton Pearce