Adopt a Winning Viewpoint: The Success of a Doman Method Family
The Doman International Institute is an organization - an organization of families, by families, and for families. I have been a student of families my entire life. Families fascinate me. I have had the great fortune of knowing intimately some of the best families in and around the world. Wherever they have come from, regardless of nationality, culture, religion or ethnicity, they are equally remarkable, determined, and very optimistic.
These families, of course, are the parents of our children with special needs. The child may be profoundly brain-injured, blind, deaf, and immobile, or the child may appear to have no obvious issues and yet have a cognitive problem. I have watched them achieve what the world considers to be miracles. For the immobile child to learn to walk and run, or for the child with learning problems to become way above average - these are miracles. I have observed parents creating thousands of victories for their children.
The attitudes of these winning families, regardless of their background, are very similar. Above all, they believe in their brain-injured child. They believe in their brain-injured child’s intellectual, social, and physical potential. They revel in their child’s improvements, big and small. The entire family truly celebrates when their child starts to walk. When the child goes from walking ten meters non-stop and the next day walks 15 meters non-stop, it is the talk of the family about how great the child is.
The world does its very best to dissuade and discourage the parents of these children from being so enthusiastic about any kind of win. I remember a child who was immobile and blind, came to us. The wonderful parents got the child seeing, reading, understanding above age level as well as crawling and creeping. At the visit, when the child received his creeping and understanding Wins, his grandmother said, “but he still can’t walk.” The parents and child were there beside me and I cringed. Parents stated at least 5 miracles and grandmother said, “but he still can’t walk.”
My father, Glenn Doman, after he became a grandfather, said, “Grandparents can either be the best thing that ever happened to the program… or cyanide is the only answer.” I am now a grandparent and am working on proving the former statement to be true. I have known spectacular grandparents and I will bring them up in future blogs. Believe it or not, when the child came back six months later, he was walking! Grandmother said, “Yes, but he still can’t talk.” Unfortunately, I had no cyanide available.
The characteristics of winning families is their viewpoint. Their viewpoint is that their child is a winner. Viewpoint is key to everything every day for a winning program. Every day, you need to arrange for your child to win intellectually. This may mean the child reads a homemade book for the first time. That’s huge for any child, less than six years of age. It’s common for hundreds of our children on the program every day. It may mean your child crawls three meters more today than he did yesterday. That’s big! If he did that every day he would be crawling more than a kilometer after a year. Always take the time to celebrate your child’s wins. It’s part of the program. It’s a necessary part of a winning program.
When Rosalind and I were young staff members in our twenties, we were running the School For Human Development. This was a school for brain-injured young people, on the campus where we lived. The students were brain-injured young men and women who were in their twenties and capable of living alone. For the most part, their problems were cognitive issues. My father said, “I want you to make a big ceremony of congratulations for all the students.” He said, “Every student is to receive an award.” Rosalind and I were very perplexed. Some of the students had not met the goals we had established for them for the semester. How could we give them an award? My father answered, “Each student can do something well. Make the award based on what they do well.” In the end, every student received an award. I remember one of the awards was for “Personal Excellence: For The Student Who Organized His Drawers and Closet in a Superior Fashion.”
My father’s viewpoint was that every student was a winner in some way and deserved recognition and congratulations. For the self-esteem of the students, these awards were wonderful and important. After all, how many well twenty-year-olds have a closet and drawers that are immaculately organized? Winning families need to celebrate the wins of their children - even if they are small - every single day. For example, a child holds his head up better than before, makes louder sounds, reads faster, smiles quicker, or recognizes a light touch on her arms. Your acknowledgment of today’s wins will help create the wins for tomorrow.
Bookstores are full of books written by professional athletes, successful entrepreneurs, religious leaders, and politicians who espouse the positive viewpoint which led to their success. Many have said that they visualized their success. Or they had a dream. They focused on the future and made it happen. The opposite viewpoint would be “Worry is using your imagination to get what you don’t want.” The viewpoint that makes dreams come true is “Winning is any noticeable improvement you helped cause joyfully.”