We all remember the teacher who told us we were stupid, or not good enough, in fact for many of us, those memories still haunt and impede us to this day. When I was in second grade I remember like it was yesterday, the teacher stood in front of the class and said, “We are all going to practice cursive, while Kristin practices printing, because she cannot print her letters properly.” However, I also have vivid memories of when I was four and I wanted a doll terribly that my parents could not afford, but my mother said that I could earn the doll. With her help and guidance I did earn the doll, just like with her help and guidance, I learned to read and print properly (I still print mostly everything to this day). We later found out that I was not stupid, but dyslexic. Through all of this my mother believed in me, constantly undoing the damage and destruction done by my teachers at school each day as she coached and supported and believed in my success until, I had the skills she always knew I would learn. Had I been left to the school system alone and not had my mother, I would have been a drop out, never learned to read or write. From that time in second grade, I knew I did not want other children to experience the degradation I experienced in school.
PALS carries within it a passion for excellence in bringing out each child’s inherent gifts. We believe in coaching and teaching and believing in children through the hard stuff until they get it right. This passion is borne of the experience of knowing that we all learn better when we are in a relaxed loving, nurturing, and supportive environment. PALS exceeds the state standards for annual teacher training by a factor of 2, because we believe that teachers need to have the best training in order to be prepared and able to handle any situation in the classroom in a loving and supportive way. PALS knows people will teach the way they have been taught, so PALS is a loving, nurturing, supportive place to work. You are welcome to see this in action at any time either by watching the classroom monitors in the office or visiting your child's classroom. PALS doors are always open.
“Scientists now know that the human brain is undergoing a constant and dramatic transformation in the first years of life. During this peak time of development, every activity and experience leaves an indelible mark on your baby’s brain, for better or for worse.” - Raise a Smarter Child by Kindergarten by: Dr. David Pearlmutter
There are beliefs about ourselves and the word around us that dictate whether we will try new things, take risks or not, achieve all we can in life or not. There are discipline techniques that enhance brain growth and increase a child’s ability to resolve conflict, and there are discipline methods that do not. A study was done that analyzed and surveyed people from all walks of life and it examined their ability to resolve conflict. From convicts to captains of industry participants were give different types of conflict and asked how they would solve those conflicts, unanimously and uniformly, the respondents on the lower end of the socioeconomic scale used violence as their first and sometimes only means of resolution. Whereas captains of industry and those most successful, had multiple options, none of which included violence.
When we are scared or insecure, the brain goes into “fight or flight mode”. This happens when someone pushes the wrong button, or when we are faced with a life or death situation. In this mode we are reactionary, we “lose control”. Once we move out of this scared place, the brain moves into our limbic system which governs our emotions, and finally, once we know we are loved and nurtured, the cerebral cortex takes over. The cerebral cortex is where we are able to be in a safe enough and loved enough place where we have control and can choose our actions and respond the way we want to rather than react. Adult brains can rationally (sometimes) move up to the cerebral cortex and make good decision even when faced with life or death situations; however, because childrens’ brains are not fully developed, it is our job to use discipline situations as an opportunity to show children that there are boundaries and that they are safe within those boundaries, and that no matter what they are loved. Through this process, we help the cerebral cortex develop into the dominant driver when it comes to conflict resolution in life.
The most important aspect of all of this is not as much what we teach, but how we teach it. I do an exercise with audiences where I ask them to think of a time when they were successful in school or work or at learning something new, and to list the conditions which were present. Then I ask participants to also think of a time when they did not learn and failed, and to list the conditions which were present. If you take the time to do this, you will notice that the conditions that are present for learning to occur, are all positive, that is that you must be relaxed and feel safe in order to learn. Therefore, our primary responsibility at PALS is to keep your child safe and make sure that they feel safe so that learning can occur. We use the tools of Conscious Discipline developed by Dr. Becky Bailey in order to do this. Dr. Bailey says that every behavior is either an act of love or a cry for love. Every PALS teacher has been and is continually trained in this culture of love for children and we are constantly seeking ways to reinforce this culture of safety and love for your child in everything we do.
According to Dr. David Perlmutter’s book, Raise a Smarter Child by Kindergarten, “Science now tells us that the human brain is unfinished at birth. There is a brief window of opportunity in a child’s life when parents can help create a brain that is built for optimal performance.”
According to other phenomenal work done at places such as the Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, the expanse of IQ during the first years of life is unquantifiable, or at least unknown. At the Institutes, they have been studying and pushing the envelope for both healthy and brain injured children since the late 1950’s. Some of their ground breaking work, shows us that we have not even begun to tap into our own potential let alone that of our children. At PALS, we take all of this research and apply it where we can into a group setting (some of the research on brain development as well as the activities derived wherefrom are designed for parent child interaction see the how can you be the best parent you can be section of this material.) and we weave it into our curriculum and program.
I received the following from a mass email the other day…
I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
The brain is an astonishing organ! We introduce wordcards to children from infancy, in order to promote the development of literacy in the brain. Many of these activities can also be done in the home or can even be done more efficiently one on one and we consistently share these ideas with you for the development of your child.
PALS also aids cognitive growth in the way that we handle discipline. When a child is frightened, or feels unsafe, neural pathways shut down and the fight or flight response is invoked. The more time a child spends in this fight or flight response mode, the less of an opportunity the other areas of the brain are able to develop on or ahead of schedule. By using the techniques of Conscious Discipline, we are focused first and foremost focused on making sure that all children in our care feel safe at all times, and further that they are loved nurtured and supported. The environment and use of Conscious Discipline sets the stage for optimal brain growth and development for your child.
Based upon what scientists now know about the windows of rapid psychological growth that occur in the brains of young children, the most important education your child will receive is in the first 5 years of life. These years will make an indelible mark on your child’s beliefs about themselves, and the world around them as well as the virtues, skills for conflict resolution, decision making and goal setting and love of learning that will enable them to attain success in whatever they choose in life. More so than any other educational experience, these years are the foundation of success.
When you look at your child, are you sometimes astonished that they have no fear of approaching strangers, or that they will stand up on a chair and sing with reckless abandon? Granted, there is socially acceptable behavior and not accepted behavior that we want children to exhibit, but embarrassment and fear have no place here. We want children to behave in a socially acceptable manner, but at the same time to retain their creativity and passion for life and living it to its fullest. How your child is treated now will very much determine your child’s future success (and the amount of therapy needed or not). How your child’s brain wires itself now, will very much determine their belief in themselves, desire to take risks, passion for life, and determination to achieve their goals, and this wiring takes place before the age of 5. New studies show that the brain is plastic through out life, but that the brain must optimally develop in the first five years through proper environment and nutrients and that the wiring your child accepts regarding his beliefs about himself, the world and his place in it are very hard to undo later in life. So, your child’s education and environment in the first five years will set the stage for what they achieve in life.
According to, Dr. Perlmutter’s book, research shows that your child’s IQ can expand as much as 30 points by doing simple things to ensure its healthy growth and development. In his book, Dr. Perlmutter makes simple suggestions for things parents can do to increase your child’s intelligence, such as changing out the mobile on an infants crib every week to help your child notice differences and start the brains natural patterning pathways to begin to grow. He has recommendations for diet and a litany of age appropriate activities you can do with your child. PALS does these activities and many more.
Other research indicates that the brain is completely plastic during this phase of development and that if the brain is injured, in say where speech is normally held, the brain will reroute its circuitry to another area of the brain allowing speech to develop. This plasticity is also crucial for advanced development for non-brain injured children and paves the way to a future where your child’s IQ can expand more than 30 points during this crucial time period.
Enroll your child at PALS and partner with us to help give your child a jump start advantage in this busy, competitive world…
Everything we do at PALS is designed to help your child develop into a happy, successful adult, from the way that we uniquely and individually greet your child each morning to the program content and curriculum and how it is presented to your child. PALS curriculum is the only of its kind (that we are aware of), in that not only is it backed by sound research of brain and early childhood development, but it is also backed by years of research into success and human achievement. If you think of the people you know who are successful, what are the top skillsets that they exhibit consistently in order to achieve success? What beliefs do they hold? Interestingly, when I ask these questions in workshops and seminars, and take down the audiences answers, I have never heard reading writing or arithmetic in any of these answers. Certainly, reading writing and arithmetic are prerequisites and helpful to attaining success, but they are not the end goal. Through interviews with successful people from all walks of life, as well as audience polls described above we have expanded upon normal curricula that is available and backed by research in order to weave in these skillsets of and beliefs that successful people hold in order to imbue your child with these characteristics from an early age.
“Our mission at PALS—Praise and Leadership Schools—is simple: We want to provide children with the tools, beliefs, self-image, and skills they will need in order to reach their highest potential in life. With the PALS foundation, children discover and expand their own unique gifts and love of learning, upon which they can build a lifetime of fun, adventure, success, and happiness."
Did you ever stop to write down what exactly you want for your child? What skills and beliefs will your child need in order to set and achieve their goals in life? Did you ever stop to think about the skillsets of success? What are they? How will you teach them to your child?
Through interviews with successful people including: financier and philanthropist, Sir John Templeton; best selling author,
By compiling these interviews and looking for the common denominators of success, I found that the most broad range topics of these skills start with the following:
Beliefs about God self and others – successful people hold beliefs about themselves that they are worthy of success, can and are destined to achieve their goals, that the world is good and that they are made in Gods image and God only makes good things. Successful people also exhibit high levels of virtue, whether it is persistence, unity, passion for excellence, generosity, or honesty, among others. In polled audiences when asked to name the top three skillsets of success, 80% of answers are virtues.
Decision Making- successful people have a process for making good decisions.
Goal setting – successful people know how to set goals, analyze their progress and realign in order to achieve their goals while maintaining virtue and integrity.
Problem solving – successful people know how to solve problems – not just mathematical ones.
Communication/conflict resolution – successful people know how to communicate with others in order to clearly and effectively communicate their ideas, and they also know how to resolve conflict peacefully when it arises.
Successful people are concerned about untiy, the world around them and contributing their best to make the world a better place for all of us to live.
For this reason, we have developed a proprietary curriculum based on the above skillsets of success, which is grounded in solid research on the components of success, and combined with sound theory of brain development and cognitive advancement. Our proprietary Lifeskills Curriculum is designed to teach children the fundamental skillsets of success, in an environment of fun, child-centered activities where they can learn without realizing they are being taught.”
From exceeding state and NAEYC training requirements in order to make sure every PALS teacher is not only qualified but confident in doing the best job possible to providing teacher and child resources to handle a myriad of situations that can happen through out the day in a loving, nurturing way, to cameras in the classroom that allow parents to observe any classroom without their child knowing that they are observing, to a state of the art security system that keeps track of your child, PALS is serious about your child’s safety and security. First and foremost we want to create a safe environment and make sure your child feels safe so that learning can and will occur, unhampered.
We know and want your child to develop a strong positive relationship with his teachers while at PALS, and that cannot happen if you are constantly seeing a new face every time you walk through the door. PALS prides itself on our low teacher turnover rates – over 50% of our employees have been with PALS over 10 years and our turnover averages around 15% annually. The national average for turnover among preschools is 45% and for chains, it is a whopping 75%. PALS teachers are what make the program what it is for you and your child, so we train them with the tools they need to do the best job and make sure that we foster a culture of love and support for all.
We want to be your partner in raising your child, we want to help you when you are frustrated, and ease you through each stage of your child’s physical and cognitive growth and development is such a way that you have the resources at your fingertips to be the best parent you can be in all realms of that role.
We not only keep parents apprised of the learning that is happening in your child’s classroom on a daily basis through daily notes, and on a semi annual basis with parent teacher conferences and portfolios, we also want you to know what we are doing to introduce new learning tools, tips, games, techniques and also discipline strategies. We do this on a monthly basis through our newsletter as well as though the parent trainings that we offer from time to time.
We encourage your involvement in field trips, host regular events to bring families together like Grandparents day, picnic with parents, Christmas Programs and many more throughout the year. And of course, we have an open door policy at every level of the organization to answer your questions and concerns as well as provide resources for you to be the best parent you can be.
“New insights into brain development affirm what many parents and caregivers have known for years,
"In June 1996, Families and Work Institute held a conference at the
- Rethinking the Brain: New Insights into Early Development by Families and Work Institiute.
http://www.kidsource.com/kidsource/content4/brain.development.html