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Ralphs. Fresh for everyone. How to pay for college a little bit more radically. Part 1 of the series. ♪ Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast. Thank you for being here. My name is Joshua Sheets. Today is Wednesday, October the 8th, 2014. And today we're going to talk about some, maybe a slightly more radical approach to saving and paying for a college education.

But we're going to start, not with 18-year-olds, but with babies. ♪ And although you might be saying, thinking, and expecting that I'm going to lead off by instructing you to start funding your kid's college education account today, even if they're still in utero, or if they are just newly born, and although that would probably be a good idea, I'm actually not going to start there.

I'm actually going to start with turning this whole education question on its head. And I'm going to start not with teaching 18-year-olds, but actually with teaching babies. And I hope you find this interesting. Now, quick disclaimer before we begin. I'm going to lay out for you in today's show, I'm going to lay out for you why I'm doing this series of shows.

How I'm going to approach it. I'm going to tell you just a little bit of my background and how I've been learning about infant education. And then I'm going to lay out for you the scope of these shows. So, give me a chance, but I do actually need to start by telling you how I expect this series to go.

One of the questions that I get as a financial planner most often is, how do I save in an intelligent way for my kid's college education? Or how do I pay for my kid's college education? I have rarely met a parent who isn't thinking or concerned about this in our modern society.

It's a big question that many people have. Very big question. And usually, people are looking for a technical answer to that question. And frankly, that's the only part of this whole education thing that I probably am actually an expert on, is the technical part of saving for education. The rest of this, I am not an expert.

I'm just simply an interested person, an interested observer. And that's the role that I'm going to take in these shows, is not actually as an expert by any account, just simply as someone who's learning. And I'm going to share with you some ideas that I think are interesting and valuable, and you can judge for yourself.

But the problem that I learned is that the whole saving for college thing just simply doesn't work. It really doesn't, just like retirement. Now, it's not that it can't work, as I say all the time. Not that it can't work, just that it doesn't work. I have yet, in six years of financial planning professionally, I have yet to meet somebody who is a parent who started saving for their kid's college education using an educational savings account of some type, whether that was a Coverdell educational savings account or a 529 plan or something like that, who has used that account and that account alone to pay for all of their child's expenses.

Many people have funded some of their kid's education with that, but there's always an additional amount that's necessary or that's needed. And so that's thing one that you have to learn, is that people often don't really save for the full amount of the college, nor necessarily should they. But even the parents who pay for most of their kid's college or all of their kid's college expenses, they often just simply do it out of savings or do it out of cash flow.

They don't often do it out of a college account. So as I started to experience this with parents, I became a little frustrated. And I said, "Ah, there's got to be something a little bit different here as far as how we're approaching it." Because I was coming from the formally trained perspective of help people establish a 529 account, fund it with the proper portfolio of mutual funds that can grow over time, and those mutual funds will pay for the kid's college education.

That was how I was trained. And then I found out it wasn't really working. Well, I'm very interested in the subject of education, as you will hear through these shows. So I said, "Why don't we just turn this whole child education thing on its head and not go to college, or go to college with different plans?" So I thought about starting there with doing a series on college education.

But then I realized, well, in order to properly understand college, you've got to probably have some different ideas about high school. And if you're going to have some different ideas about high school, you might want to back up to middle school. And if you're going to back up to middle school, you might want to back up to elementary school.

And then recently, I've actually backed up to babyhood and toddlerhood. And that's where I'm going to start today. Not with teaching your 18-year-old, but actually with teaching your baby. And I anticipate at least four shows in this series, probably more. But the first show today, I'm going to be talking about infant education, infant and toddler education.

The next show in this series, I'm going to be discussing education during the traditional elementary, middle, and high school years. Then the show after that, I'm going to be discussing alternatives to the mainstream view of college, or the mainstream path of college. And then the fourth show, at least four, I'm going to be discussing the technical details of how to pay for college in a mainstream manner.

If you're only interested in the technical details, feel free to tune in to part four, or the show that specifically deals with that. But I would ask you, give me a chance to give you some ideas. And it's important for me to put a disclaimer here, especially with today's show.

I am not an expert on education. I have zero formal credentials on education. I have just a background of being interested in the subject and of thinking of it. And I draw a lot from my experience and from my observation. I've read a decent amount. Probably the thing I am weakest on is what I'm going to be talking about today.

So I'm not going to be telling you what's right or wrong today. I'm just going to be sharing with you some ideas that I think are interesting and encouraging you to do your own research. And I'm hoping, because I've learned that this is a very intelligent audience listening to this show, I'm hoping that some of you can help me with some of your experience, and that we can enhance some of what we are going to be talking about, enhance some of our ideas with the synergy of the brainpower of the audience.

So let's dig into infant education. Now I'm not sure if you've ever thought about this, but I've been thinking and learning a lot about this. And the way that I got into this was entirely accidental. A few months ago I had no idea that this entire field of education existed.

Didn't have any idea. The most I'd ever heard of teaching infants, babies, is the idea of teaching baby sign language. I've seen that because I've had some friends that had done that. Teach the baby how to say "more" when they're ready for some more and if they want more food.

Teach the baby how to say "all done" when they're done eating. Teach the baby how to say "milk" when they want some milk. And that was as far as I had gone. The only other aspect I'd ever been exposed to with infant education was actually, somebody had sent a video one time, or maybe it was in a Facebook news feed, about basically drown-proofing your infant.

And I saw a video where this little baby falls in the water, and you teach the baby to roll over on its back and float on its back, so that it can basically not drown in the swimming pool, but just sit there and float until it's rescued. I had a hard time believing it when I first saw it.

If there's something that makes your heart go out, it's to see a baby fall in the pool. And it's just the most amazing thing to watch this little infant turn over, float on its back, and not drown. So I thought that was amazing. My wife and I had our son, and I think he was about seven or eight months old, something like that.

And my wife decided she wanted to teach him to swim. We don't have a pool, but we live in Florida, and there are lots of pools. And she just figured it would be something that she would enjoy doing, use one of the neighbor's pools and teach him to swim.

So we go on YouTube, and we're trying to find, you know, how do you teach your infant to float, essentially. And while I'm there, I find a video of a baby not only floating, but swimming. And I couldn't believe it. I'll link to the video in the show notes, because it was an amazing, amazing video when I see it.

Because this little baby is happily, you know, under the water, just happily swimming away, arms and legs kicking, and I couldn't believe it. Well, then I look over in the right-hand margin on YouTube. They put the other suggestions. And I see a video here that I'm going to play about two minutes of audio for you.

And what caught my eye is that this video is entitled "11-Month-Old Baby Genius Reading." And I said, "Ah, that's ridiculous." And I click on the video, and I listen to this. And I watch this video. And since I don't expect you to watch the video if you're driving down the road, picture in your mind there's a mom, and she's a Hispanic mom speaking in English and in Spanish, and a little baby, little baby, sitting there, and they're doing flashcards.

And the flashcards that they're doing have words on them, and I'm listening to the baby say these words. Now, what you'll hear in just a moment is the mom shows the card to the baby, and the baby says the word, and then the mom repeats it. Now, this is an 11-month-old baby, so the baby is not able to fully articulate the actual letters of the word.

But listen for the difference in the sounds. And you'll see how with each of the different words the baby's sounds actually change. So listen to this video here. Very good. Fingers. Happy. Very good. Arms up. Down. Very good. Arms down. Girl. Green. Kick. Kicking. Horse. Very good. Reach. Very good.

Rhinoceros. What does this say? Car. Camel. Bull. Mouse. Nose. Purple. Pet. Very good. I don't want to play much more of that. Just enough. And I would encourage you to go, and if you're interested, actually watch the full video. That video is actually seven minutes long, and that's a minute and 50 seconds of the audio.

And if you're just listening to the audio, it's probably a little bit difficult to hear. But I watched the seven-minute video, and I became convinced by watching it, just listening to the tone of the baby, especially in some of the later parts of the video, just listening to the tone of the baby, that the, I think it's a little girl, that she is distinguishing between these different words.

And I thought, how on earth can an 11-month-old baby distinguish between different words? So I started just, I just go nuts on YouTube, just following the links through. And I found out that there are, you know, thousands of parents working on teaching their baby to read. Now, I later learned that obviously everyone else knew about this except me.

Evidently, there was a, there's a product called Teach Your Baby to Read that has infomercials and things like that. But since I don't have a TV, I don't get that stuff. So I was just blown away, and everyone tells me, "Joshua, duh, of course, you know, have you not seen the infomercial?" And I found out that I was the last person in the world to hear about this.

And so that started me just researching and looking at different things. And by the way, and I don't expect you to accept that the 11-month-old is reading. You know, there's a lot of problems of definition here where we have to tighten up our grammar to actually describe what we're talking about.

I just was interested that this 11-month-old was differentiating between these different cards. And so that set me off on actually reviewing information and actually studying this. Well, when I start Googling it, I get to a website called dominmom.com, and I started learning about a man named Glenn Doman. I'd never heard of him, and I find out he's got a number of different books.

And I'm going to tell his story in just a minute, but as I'm researching and reading through different ideas, I come across an introduction and a discussion of child reading by a man named Larry Sanger. And Larry Sanger was actually the co-founder of Wikipedia, and he's written an essay on teaching his children to read.

And I was really impressed with his essay. Now, by essay, it's a 145-page book, basically, but it's an essay. And I appreciated his tone. If I hadn't started with his essay soon after finding the Doman Mom website, I probably would have been scared off from this aspect of education, because his essay was so articulate and non-sensationalist that it opened my eyes to some of the questions, some of the ideas, some of the objections about this course of education.

It really opened my eyes. What I want to do here is I'm going to play the audio from his son learning to read. And he mentions in here, it's basically the reading progress between age two and age four. And you'll hear his son reading some different information, actually at three years old, reading the Constitution.

And I'm going to talk a little bit about some of the controversy on this subject, but I want to play the audio for you. And it may be -- stick with it. If you don't want to hear it, it's about four minutes and 23 seconds is how long the video is.

But stick with it, because at the beginning, you'll hear this progression. And it's really amazing to hear the progression. It's a little hard at the beginning, because the little boy is still learning how to articulate the words. But take a listen to this and see what you think of this ability and this learning how to read.

Very interesting. >> Our boy read his first words a few months before his second birthday. November 2008, age two years, five months, reading at the first grade level. >> Say it louder. >> Okay, good boy. >> March 2009, age two years, nine months, reading around the second grade level.

>> Good boy. >> And the man -- >> Were -- >> What's that? >> Greeting train station. >> Greeting the train station. >> Taking a trip. >> Mm-hmm. >> Good boy. >> September 2009, age three years, four months, reading around the third grade level. >> April 2010, age three years, ten months, reading around the fourth grade level.

>> That's the very first one, isn't it? >> Mm-hmm. >> Magic Treehouse Series. >> Chapter one, Into the Woods. >> Amendment one, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of -- >> June 2010, age four years, one month, reading around the fifth grade level. >> There was an old man which appeared, who said, "It is just as I feared." Two hours and a half, for walks and a run, I built all the distance in my view.

>> A Sporn Young Reading. >> Chapter one, The Great Hole. >> To read about how I taught my toddler to read, please go to LarrySanger.org/reading.html. >> And if you go to that link, there will be a link to that in the show notes. >> If you go to that link, you will see a link to his essay.

>> It's a free essay PDF, and you can download it and read it. >> I strongly recommend it. >> So when I watched that video, I was just really impressed. >> And it may, if this is your first exposure to this, there may be many things that would go through your head.

>> I hope that if this is your first exposure like me, that your response would be, "Wow, that's really unusual." >> I wonder how that happened and why that happened. >> If you're like some people, however, it may be, it's a little hard to hear in the audio, >> and the little boy clearly is not, is still learning how to form the words clearly.

>> But I just was amazed. >> And when you hear this little boy at three years, ten months, so less than four years old, >> reading the Constitution, reading the First Amendment of the Constitution, I think that's pretty impressive. >> And he's reading the cover of Beowulf and pronouncing words like the author's name, Tavares.

>> Is it possible that his father read to him? I think it's possible. >> I don't really know, and actually none of that is important for my point. >> It's just simply that I was pretty impressed by it. >> So I start researching, and what I find is that there's a lot of controversy around this subject, >> but I think there's a lot of research that is really strong and a lot of room for more research.

>> And so I started reading because of finding the blog Doman Mom, and it was actually her video that I found >> talking about, it was actually the video of her son whom she had taught to swim that I had actually found. >> So when I followed that through the original YouTube swimming video that I found, >> then I stumbled on her blog, and she has two sons and now a brand new baby girl, >> and she discovered some of this early childhood education when I think her first son was a couple of years old.

>> And then she stumbled across it and really embraced these ideas and is very active with working with her second son, >> who was a young boy named Damian, and now she's just actually had a brand new baby girl. >> And she's writing on her blog. By the way, I've reached out to both of these people for an interview, >> to Doman Mom and also to Larry Sanger.

I haven't been able to reach either of them for an interview, >> so I'd like to bring both of them on and talk about what they're learning, >> because I think this is a really valuable part of financial planning and things we can do for our children >> and to really enhance the brightness of their future.

>> But based upon that work, I started studying a man named Glenn Doman, and he was the name that I found first. >> I've since gone on to learn that there are a number of other people from various backgrounds >> who have done a lot of work and who have contributed a lot to this area of education, >> but Glenn Doman was the one who kind of clicked the most with me, I would say.

>> And Glenn Doman is a man who actually started in about the early 1940s, >> he started working with children as a physical therapist, and he was trying to help children with brain injuries. >> And evidently, from what I have read about him, he wasn't seeing any success with the therapies he was trying, >> and so he started just basically looking around and trying different things.

>> In 1955, he founded an organization called the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, >> which is a non-profit educational charity that is committed to teaching parents how to help their children recover from brain injury >> and reach their potential as human beings. >> And from that institute, they've assembled a really amazing body of work on actually helping babies and helping children.

>> And the research that they have done is really, really fascinating to me, >> because when you start to see the, I guess just the proof, the YouTube videos and things like that, >> it really has opened my eyes. >> Now, he's not an uncontroversial figure. >> Frankly, people who are pushing boundaries generally are not uncontroversial.

>> I always think of someone like Dr. Atkins years ago. >> Here's this cardiologist who is trying to figure out how to treat heart disease, >> and he develops the Atkins diet, which to this day is almost universal. >> It seems like everyone poo-poos it. >> And I wonder sometimes when I hear the criticism of him, >> I wonder sometimes when I hear the criticism, if anyone has criticized him and actually read his books, >> you know, I lost a tremendous amount of weight when I was in middle school.

>> I lost something like 70 pounds by following the Atkins diet. >> Now, that's a whole long road in itself when you get into weight loss and things like that, >> but what is interesting is that his attack on carbohydrates today is generally becoming more accepted, basically, >> that if you're interested in getting healthier, improving your cardiovascular fitness, and decreasing your weight, >> the reduction of sugar and carbohydrates is going to be more important than the reduction of fat, >> which is basically what his book said.

>> And there's all little nuances of the debate. I don't want to talk too much about that. >> But it's just interesting that he was never really exonerated prior to his death, >> and he's still a figure of controversy, but it takes time for the science to prove it out.

>> So, Glenn Doman, clearly there are many people who say it's pseudoscience and it doesn't really work, >> and it's uninformed, it's impossible, but it's interesting because as more research is being done on this aspect of early child education, >> it's really interesting how much...it's cool to see the science that's being done in this area.

>> And there's some very simple techniques that he teaches to mothers to work with their children >> that really seem to have some impressive results. >> Now, there are a number of books that he has written, and I've read a couple of them. >> I haven't read a lot of them, but I want to give this to you as a point of research.

>> What is most talked about is teaching your baby to read. >> And so he goes through in that system a discussion of teaching your baby to read and how you do it, >> and basically use a method involving flashcards and flashing the words at your child, >> and then repeating the words, and then over time they learn to associate the word with the flashcard.

>> He also has a book called "How to Teach Your Baby Math," and that one is really interesting. >> He essentially is teaching relatively advanced math skills to babies, and he calls them "tiny children," >> which I actually really like that turn of phrase, he calls them "tiny children," he doesn't really refer to them as babies.

>> But he's written a book called "How to Teach Your Baby Math." >> He has another book called "How to Multiply Your Baby's Intelligence." >> There are other books, "How to Give Your Baby Encyclopedic Knowledge," "How to Teach Your Baby to be Physically Superb," >> "Fit Baby," "Smart Baby," "Your Baby," and "What to Do About Your Brain-Injured Child." >> I think those are the primary ones.

>> But the one that finally brought things together for me was I read his book called "How to Teach Your Baby to Swim." >> And in that one, I found it to be...my wife was reading it as well, because she's teaching our son to swim. >> And when I'm reading this book called "How to Teach Your Baby to Swim," it all kind of came together.

>> And the book is written by his son, who I think is named Douglas Doman. >> And his son, evidently, he's going through the process and they're taking pictures of starting with his son, >> and they start teaching his son to swim, so this would be Glenn Doman's grandson, >> they start teaching the baby to swim on the first day of his birth, at one day old.

>> Now, this is a very gentle process, and they are basically taking him in the tub and letting him hang out in the tub a little bit. >> And the idea and the theory behind it is that the baby is most comfortable in a liquid environment, >> and it can move most easily in a liquid environment.

>> So by having the baby be able to swim, even from one day old, the baby is able to exercise and able to have greater physical activity. >> And with this greater physical activity, that helps the baby's brain to develop more quickly. >> And what I learned is basically how I would summarize in my current level of understanding, which is limited, >> is that all of these approaches are essentially an intentional desire to stimulate the baby's brain.

>> So physical exercise stimulates the baby's brain. >> I read some science on this a few years ago, I read a book called Brain Rules by Dr. John Medina, >> and what stood out to me most after reading that book was the impact of physical exercise on the development of the brain, >> and on the health of the brain, and I don't think this has been proven, but there were indications, >> so I don't think this is proven, but I did see some indications that people suspect that one of the best things that you can do >> to keep your brain strong and active for a longer period of time is to increase the amount of physical activity, >> because the blood flow in the body, from what I understand, increases the blood flow in the brain.

>> So it's possible that one good way to maybe defer the onset of something like Alzheimer's or dementia might be physical activity. >> It might also be mental activity. I am not well versed in that science, and he didn't say that to be a fact, he said it's possible.

>> That's what maybe things are pointing toward. >> So what I took away from reading this information on teaching babies is basically the primary point is to stimulate a baby's brain, >> and if you can stimulate a baby's brain more and more, then that helps the baby's brain to develop and to grow larger and to be stronger.

>> So with this as a background, it really helped me to understand how you can do different exercises and activities with your baby to help your baby. >> And this conforms with some of the research that I've read in the past about stimulation of babies with things like physical touch and snuggling.

>> And I think there's research that's been done on children that are raised in orphanages where they're not touched very much, >> and then they lack, they have developmental problems, probably because of that lack of touch and that lack of stimulation. >> So one of the things that you can do with your babies is spend a lot of time touching them and cuddling with them and snuggling them and stimulating them.

>> Well, the neat thing about the Domen program is he gives you just this fascinating roadmap to walk on to stimulate your baby. >> And it starts literally on day one. >> And it starts with things like visual stimulation. >> He has a program, and the best place to go if you're interested in this subject is go to, the best place that I have found so far is actually go to domenmom.com.

>> And it's interesting, she just two weeks ago has had a new baby girl named Aria, >> and she is putting pictures of what she's doing with her two-week-old baby girl, illustrating the different aspects to the little baby girl's educational plan. >> And so at this point, it's a lot of visual stimulation of hanging different shapes, black and white.

>> You start with black and white, and then you introduce some colors in the crib. >> So it practices the baby's viewing, the baby looking and focusing as the little baby's sight is developing. >> You also focus on some sensory stimulation with flashlights, some dim flashlights to exercise the eyes, the irises, or the pupils.

>> I think it's the pupils, I guess. >> Dilate and grow and decrease with the introduction of light. >> You do mental hand stimulation and just different stages. >> So I was fascinated by this as a way to teach the baby right from day one and to possibly enhance the baby's development.

>> One of the things I was most interested in is our son, he seemed to start crawling later than normal. >> I don't put a big stock in most of these, kind of what's normal at a certain age. >> I figure kids are going to grow up at their rate and it's an unusual baby that's still crawling and it doesn't really matter.

>> But one of the cool things I learned with watching Doman is he actually has, they developed something they call a crawling track. >> And so they teach the baby right from the beginning how to crawl. >> And it was interesting, right on the same morning when our son was born, I remember the midwives doing that with putting him on the bed and actually making sure that he had the crawling reflex.

>> And they teach at the Doman Institute, they teach that one of the things we do is we bundle the kids up, we swaddle them, and they're not able to move. >> And we keep the place cool where they have to be bundled up and they kind of lose this ability to crawl.

>> But if you will encourage this ability to crawl right from day one, then it helps them to become stronger at an earlier age. >> And remember that the goal of the physical exercise is to enhance the brain development. >> So I was extremely fascinated by that and I just think it's a really, really valuable, really valuable information.

>> And so my wife and I are actually just starting this with our one-year-old son. >> We're just starting with the flashcards and I don't feel under, by the way, one of the key things that I think to be a healthy, mentally a healthy parent, you have to not worry about the whole, you know, keeping up with other people.

>> I think you got to do what you can do and do what you want to do. >> It's so easy to get into competition with other people about certain things and put pressure on yourself. >> And so we're just doing what we can do. My wife has been teaching our son to swim.

He really likes to swim. >> He's doing well at learning that. And then we're working with the flashcards now and we spend a lot of time reading with them and things like that. >> And the cool thing about it is some of the research that's being done in these areas is research on how to help in all the different aspects of early childhood development.

>> I found one other blog that seems good. It's also called ICanTeachMyChild.com. >> And this lady, she divides her early child development into actually seven categories. >> And it's really interesting if you consider this as a plan for how to work with your child. >> And you say, well, how can I stimulate and help their development in these different areas?

>> And the different areas would be language, language skills, cognitive skills, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, self-help and adaptive skills, social and emotional, and then spiritual and motor. >> And I thought that was interesting because it gives you different aspects of how can I help my child to develop and how can I stimulate my child.

>> There is a lot of controversy over some of this early childhood education. >> And if you are interested in the controversy, I think Sanger does the best job in part two of his book called What are the Objections to this Area? >> And he has the objections are yes, it is possible.

Number two, the problem of the sales hype. Number three, why isn't this already common knowledge and practice? >> Number four, the marginalization of very early reading. Number five, the pressure objection, which I'm going to come back to in a moment. >> Number six, the vicarious achievement worry. Number seven, the too much video, too early objection.

>> Number eight, the creative free play objection, which I'm also going to come back to in a moment. >> Number nine, the conceptual maturity objection. Number ten, the sap motivation objection. >> Number eleven, the miseducation objection. Number twelve, does early reading really have long-term advantages? >> And that there's no need to be defensive about what you have or haven't done.

>> That's actually, as I've been excited about this and talked with other people, I've found the no need to be defensive version to be probably the biggest impediment to these conversations. >> Is that if you have children, it's very easy for parents to be defensive and say, well, I didn't do that with my children, so therefore there's no reason for you to do it.

>> And to be clear, I think for me and then for anybody else who's interested in this area, I am not, I don't think anyone, I think we all do what we know to do based on what we can do. >> Not everybody can do everything, and that's fine.

So I'm interested in what I can do, but I'm not going to worry about necessarily what other people do. >> And there's no, and I think there's good evidence to show that none of this is necessary for human development. >> The interesting kind of objections to it seem to have, to this aspect of education, and the reading I think is the most developed, although I think some of the other aspects are very important, some of the other types of education, not just cognitive or language abilities.

>> But one of the big ones is the pressure objection. And so one of the ones is, well, why are you pressuring your child to learn? >> I actually don't, a lot of people, there are many stereotypes about how I'm going to teach my child so that they can go into an elite university or so that they can go to the greatest fourth grade.

>> You'll hear as my shows go on that I don't actually have, I have very little interest in the traditional architecture of education, and I have very little interest in what most people are in as far as child development. >> I do want, however, my son to be the best version of himself that he's able to be, and I want to do a good job of encouraging him.

>> The pressure thing is interesting because what you find when you actually do it, as we're now starting, just getting started with our one-year-old son, that as we're just getting started, it's, you know, when you're doing flashcards, for example, you're doing five flashcards and it takes about 15 seconds.

>> So we usually do this right before he's getting ready to eat, and we just show him five flashcards and then you're done in about 15 seconds because the technique, if you're following the Domen technique, is you just simply flash the word for about a second, say the word, and then continue on.

>> And we'll see as time develops because there are other people that have other techniques. >> We'll see what we do and what seems to be effective, and I'm enjoying the process of learning. >> But it really is not a lot of pressure. >> And the key thing is also that the children, babies, love to learn.

I mean, I just marvel every day at my son's development and watching him develop and watching him learn. >> Very, very, very fascinating. >> Also, the other aspect of it is the creative free play objection that, and again, Sanger does a good job talking about it, is I think that is a very important aspect of a child's development is the ability to actually just simply play and enjoy themselves.

>> Now, I do want to read one simple example here. I want to read one of these objections here because I think it's a good example just of how often in our society we don't study these things through. >> And this is a recent education, and the title of this is from The Atlantic, and this is Dateline, February 26, 2014.

This is a short article. >> There are other ones as well. I found a lengthy one in the Daily Mail. I'll link to that in the show notes as well. >> So you can read some of the objections to this approach to education if you're interested. >> But listen to this short article on, and the title is called "Study.

Babies Can't Learn to Read." >> "For decades, the baby media industry has been selling anxious parents books, DVDs, flashcards, and other products that claim to teach very young children to learn to read and do math." >> "All babies are Einsteins when it comes to learning to read. Your baby can actually learn to read beginning at three months of age," one company claims.

>> Another promises that "teaching your baby to read is easy." >> "The industry has been under siege in recent years for making promises it can't possibly meet." >> "In 2008, lawyers threatened a class-action lawsuit against Baby Einstein unless the company offered customers refunds on their DVDs." >> "In 2011, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission accusing the program Your Baby Can Read of engaging in false advertising." >> "The following year, the company announced it was shutting down.

It's back in business now." >> "A recent study from New York University's Education School shows there's good reason to be skeptical of baby media and that many parents aren't nearly skeptical enough." >> "The researchers worked with 117 children aged 10 to 18 months and their families. Some of the babies were given the Your Baby Can Read program, while the rest received no intervention." >> "Over the course of seven months, the researchers assessed several metrics of language development and reading comprehension to see if the program worked." >> "At the end of the experiment, one thing was clear." >> "Our results indicated that babies did not learn to read." >> "The babies who completed the Your Baby Can Read program scored the same as the control group on 13 out of 14 measures of early reading skills." >> "Susan Newman, one of the authors of the study and a former U.S.

Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, said she suspects this conclusion can apply to most programs that claim to teach infants to read." >> "I don't think it's a problem of the particular product," Newman said. >> "I think it's a problem of the issue of development. These children do not have the internal capabilities to learn how to read at this young of an age." >> "This doesn't mean parents should do nothing to encourage their babies' literacy development, of course.

Newman said parents can read to their infants and coach them on vocabulary words." >> "Some children can determine whether a book is right-side up or upside down as early as 14 months," she said. "There are some psychological developmental capabilities that children are learning. They're just not learning to read." >> "That doesn't stop parents from hoping, though.

A fascinating finding of Newman's study is that even though the babies in the experiment group didn't learn to read, their parents thought they did." >> "There was the belief among parents that their babies were learning to read and that their children had benefited from the program," the study said.

>> "This is a reminder of the blinding power of parental ambition. Parents want so badly to give their children an edge that they'll believe a program works, even when there's no evidence that it does. And marketers are all too eager to capitalize on this credulousness." >> "These program developers prey on the tiger moms, on the wishful thinkers," said Newman.

>> Now, you'll have to decide what to make of the article. I find it an interesting article because I think it's illustrative of what often happens in our society, is we read an article like that, and the article is quite strong that, no, babies can't learn to read. And many people would take that article and say, "Well, since it's impossible, everything associated with early childhood learning is completely ridiculous." Well, I've learned never to take an article without actually going and reading the study.

I wasn't able, in preparation for this show, to find the study. I spent some time looking at it. Evidently, it was published in the Journal of Educational Psychology to actually find the study, find the methodology. Very few details are given, other than 117 children, and some things were measured.

But very few details are given about the, you know, did they just have one time a day, watch the videos or not. So I couldn't find the actual study to find out one way or the other. I encourage you to do your research on it. But it's a good point that I think there are many benefits to this type of approach.

And if it doesn't work, if early childhood education is a complete farce, then the question is, is there any benefit to it? And I love, well, A, I love that I read Larry Sanger's book first, because I thought it was the most rational discussion from somebody who has a little bit of experience, who's able to intelligently look through the information, and write from a balanced perspective.

I'm glad I read it, so I wasn't scared off, because oftentimes in the past I've been scared away from controversial subjects, just because I find kind of, "This person says this, and I rest confidently in that," instead of digging into the nuance a little bit. But I love a quote that Glenn Doman said, and I had found this originally on domanmom.com.

And the quote says, "Put that on my tombstone. Make that my epitaph. He drove mothers and babies closer together, and I will rest well." And it's interesting, because when you start to research these things, and you start to research education, you can get lost in the morass of technique versus relationship.

Technique is what many people focus on, and it's important to focus on it. But one interesting aspect of it, if you, for example, if you read the Wikipedia entry for the Institutes for the Advancement of Human Potential, it is scathing, scathing on this man's techniques. And basically the impression that I get from the Wikipedia article is everything is made up.

None of it has any evidence and evidence-based medicine, and it's basically you scan people, especially people with children that have special needs. And so you think, "Wow, what's going on here?" But the interesting thing about different aspects of development, child development and studies, is what is the actual thing that makes the difference?

Is it that the babies can learn to read, and that's what it is? Or is it the fact that the parents, who are the type of parents to really engage their children in that way, that that relationship is the thing that has the impact? Or are they the kind of people that have the ability to really engage with their children over the long term, and their children are going to develop very quickly because of that attention and because of them bringing opportunities to them?

I don't know. I really don't. I'm an absolute novice at this, and I'm just enjoying learning, personally. And I'm sharing this purely as something I think we could and should be doing a lot more research on. But when you start looking at some of the moms who are doing this, and again, Doman Mom, I think, is the most interesting, it's pretty amazing to see the developmental milestones of her children, especially her younger son, Damien, and see what he's doing.

Go on YouTube. Spend some time on YouTube and spend some time there. But even if nothing else, I like his quote, "Put that on my tombstone. Make that my epitaph. He drove mothers and babies closer together, and I will rest well." I think that there are many, many things that we can do when working with our very small children.

I think if you just simply spend time with the kids and engage them, that that's going to be the key, is that's building that relationship. I thought prior to doing this series, maybe I'll do a lot of research and bring a lot of stats and statistics and evidence, and I decided just to do this more as a conversation.

But, you know, there's...I've read really impressive statistics illustrating how much of a child's vocabulary is captured by the age of three and by the age of five. Really amazing. And how much of their character development comes in. And I think there is so much that we can do to help our children at a very young age if we focus on it.

I don't understand, and if you want to do this, that's fine, but I just simply don't understand why as a society we've chosen largely to separate ourselves from our children. It's very common in today's world that dad and mom will both work outside of the house, and therefore they'll pay somebody to care for the child.

And I don't understand how that's...I don't understand why we'd want that. It doesn't make sense to me. Now, if you have a desire to do that in your family, one thing that's important for you to understand about me, I'm a pretty libertarian in my thinking, which means that I say, "Do what you want.

Live how you want. I'm not going to bother with it." But I struggle to understand. And I've struggled to understand sometimes with financial planning clients who they spent most of their time separated from their children, and they're spending a lot of time just simply trying to hire people to teach their children.

And I look at it and say, "Why don't you just spend some time with your kids? It's far cheaper, far more fun. Spend time with your kids. Spend time reading to your kids. Spend time teaching your kids to read. Engage with them. Engage with them and expose them to many, many different kinds of stimulation and kinds of connection." And I am constantly amazed at how much kids can do at a young age.

And I love this area of research. I'm going to finish up with two things here on today's show. Number one is just by engaging with children, with tiny children, with infants and with babies, I think that that can be tremendously valuable. I'm interested in the—the Montessori schools are probably the most popular of the alternative schooling environments.

And if you go online, you can start to read about lists of famous Montessori CEOs in San Francisco, tech people who were all Montessori school students because their creativity was enhanced. Now, can you prove anything with a sample set like that? No. That's cherry-picking statistics. But I think there's a lot of benefit to it.

It makes sense intuitively if we spend time teaching kids. But I think we can do a lot more if we really focus on how can we proactively help our children develop at a young age. And I'll close with one final story that we've been learning with our son. And this story is intended to illustrate the importance of researching things and searching things out and trying them without necessarily being too connected with the results.

One thing that I often find, and I'm constantly amazed, is that my own preconceptions of what's possible are often disrupted by what we actually do. And the world around—we usually think, well, the world is working in a way that makes sense, but sometimes it's not. And the example that we're learning this with is potty training for a child.

So in the US-American context, I'm not exactly sure what the average age is. I would guess it's probably somewhere between two to three to four years old that we teach our children to—we potty train our kids and get them out of diapers to be able to use the toilet.

And I've watched this happen with many nieces and nephews, and it's generally a fairly traumatic experience. It's generally a fairly challenging experience for moms and babies. Well, my wife, when she was pregnant, she came across something that's very crunchy and very—the name for it in the US-American culture is called elimination communication.

And basically, the whole idea is that you work with potty training your child at a much younger age than what is culturally normal in the US-American context. And the saying that I've heard is that most people around the world, the majority of people outside of the US-American context, most kids are potty trained by the age of about one.

And I didn't know, you know, what does potty training mean? Again, you get into the need to define your terms. What is a potty trained child? There are different levels to that, just like what is reading? Is reading being able to pronounce the words? Is reading being able to grasp the sentence and the structure of the sentence?

Or is reading being able to grasp all of the meaning behind the words? So just because a four-year-old can read the Constitution doesn't mean that the four-year-old is grasping the Constitution. But then again, an 18-year-old may read the Constitution, not be able to grasp the Constitution, grasp the importance of certain words and certain phrases.

So back to the story, though, of potty training. So if the majority of people around the world are potty trained at one year old, but in the United States it's two or three years old that we actually potty train a child, why? And now you can get into that, and that can be an endless road.

But where I just go is, well, why not try it? So we actually started potty training our son at two weeks old, and basically all it consisted of at that point in time is you hold him over a--when you change his diaper, you hold him over a receptacle of some time, and you make a sound, you pick the sound.

We used a "psst" sound. And then you just praise him profusely when he pees. And what's amazing is that over time you really can connect and understand and really have a much better--I'm trying to think of how to express this--I guess connection with his bathroom needs. And it's really impressive now.

My wife and I are really just blown away by it. At the age of one, he does a really great job of going to the bathroom on the potty instead of in his diaper. Now, it's certainly not perfect. I would certainly not consider him perfectly potty trained where he has no need for a diaper, no.

But it's generally very possible for us to go several days without having any bowel movements in his diaper. And it's not uncommon for us to be able to go most of a day or half a day or most of a day, sometimes even a whole day, without having any urine in his diaper, without having any wet diapers.

And we're just amazed by that. Because here is the benefit--and it's like, wow, I never knew that was possible for a one-year-old. And the coolest thing about it--and this is where I want to close with the Doman information. Doman writes in his books that it is far easier to teach a one-year-old to read than a two-year-old.

And then it's far easier to teach a two-year-old to read than a three-year-old. And it's easier to teach a three-year-old than a four-year-old. And it's easier to teach a four-year-old than a five-year-old. And I scratched my head over that allegation, because he writes this in his books. And I'm like, how on earth can that be possible?

I learned to read fairly easily and at a fairly young age. And it always stood me in great--it always helped me and benefited me immensely. And I've never been able to understand what he wrote in there until recently. And the key thing we're learning is--my wife and I are learning--is as we watch some of our older nieces and nephews go along their educational path, and then we watch the things we're experimenting with with our one-year-old, it's really fascinating to me to see some of the differences and some of the examples.

And what I'm finding is, at least with potty training, it's been a lot easier--it seems to my wife and I at this point in our experience-- that it's been a lot easier for us to work with potty training our son when we started at two weeks old than it has been when we watch some of my family members and friends trying to do it at two and a half or three years old, where it's often a bit of a battle.

It's been a lot easier for us. There's no battle. And our son happily just sits down on the potty and does his business throughout the day. And sometimes we have a wet diaper and sometimes we don't. Most of the time we don't have a poopy diaper, but every now and then we do.

And sometimes we have a poopy diaper three times in a day, which is normal. We've learned is sometimes it goes better than others, and it's more reliable than others. We just don't worry about it. Just keep doing it. And same thing with, for example, like learning to swim. Doman says in his swimming book it's easier to teach a two-year-old to swim than it is a six-year-old.

And we're finding it probably is, because I watch my six-year-old niece or nephew learn to swim, and they have all these fears and they have all these hang-ups about the water, and they're scared to float, and they've got to deal with all these fears. Whereas our little one-year-old son, I mean, he's happy as a clam in the water, and he's not swimming on his own yet, but he's working his way through the curriculum.

So it's an area that I'm very interested in, and I think that if nothing else, it certainly would create a closer relationship with parents. At least some of this early childhood education at least can help a child to be exposed to a broader range of experiences. And I think it's very possible that it could help the child's brain development to develop more quickly.

I don't know that for a fact. I haven't seen any proof of that. But there is certainly some anecdotal evidence that would illustrate that. These concepts, I think, can be a valuable place. Today's show, again, is just more designed to share with you some ideas. I don't know if you've ever been exposed to this, but I know many of you have young children or will have children.

I would love to see us do more and more research in this area of education. Now, it does bring, I think, some challenges they have to deal with. What do you do if a child is developmentally ahead of where their peers are? What do you do if your four-year-old can easily read at a fifth grade level or a fourth grade level when they're not even yet in kindergarten, you know, three years and ten months?

That brings a kind of a problem, which we'll talk about in the next show in this series. But probably a good problem, right? So hopefully some of these ideas you find helpful. This is probably the least connected to college, but I did want to start here just because it's something I'm excited about.

I'm excited about learning more about it and just experimenting with different things and tracking our results, see what works, see what doesn't work, and just kind of learn at this. So I hope you enjoy today's show. A little bit different than the hardcore nuts and bolts. But if you're doing this or if you've done this or if you've found great resources, I'd love to know this.

If any of you know somebody who's done this, I'd love to interview them on the subject. Maybe you can send them my way and we can review them. Thank you for listening to the show. If you like it, make sure you subscribe. Make sure that you leave a comment if you haven't done so already.

Review Stitcher. If you listen to Stitcher, leave some Stitcher reviews. I would love that. I only have about five reviews over there. Leave a review on iTunes. It would be great as well. Be back with you tomorrow. Hey parents, join the LA Kings on Saturday, November 25th for an unforgettable Kids Day presented by Pear Deck.

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