While all of these children might have different kinds of symptoms, they all have the same root cause of the problem, and that is an injury to the brain. We can help these children by teaching the parents programs and techniques that directly treat the brain itself, and when we do that, the symptoms start to reduce and go away.
So who is the Doman method for? — it is for children with special needs and developmental disabilities, who have an underlying problem within the brain.
You believe parents are their child's best teacher, can you explain that?
That’s right, we do believe that parents are the best teachers for their children, and that’s because parents love their children more than anyone else, they want the very best for their children and they have the most amount of time to dedicate to their children. During the first years of life, before a child ever sets foot in school, they learn everything from their parents.
My grandfather, Glenn knew this fact and so he made sure to empower the most important people in a child's life, the parents, with the knowledge they needed to help that child develop intellectually, physically and socially so that that child could be a capable, happy and healthy person.
I understand a lot of the Doman family is still involved in carrying Glenn Doman's life work. Can you share with us who that is and what makes you carry on this legacy?
It is great honor and pleasure that I can carry on my grandfather's life work, and in addition to that, carry forward his mission to help children all around the world. I am also fortunate enough to share in this experience with my father Douglas, with my mother Rosalind, with my wife Melissa, and my sister Morgan.
We are proud stewards of my grandfather’s legacy. His mission was to help children with special needs worldwide and help them develop, with the ultimate goal of complete wellness. We have that same goal and teach parents how to help their children achieve this goal.
What is the goal of The Doman Method?
Our goal is complete wellness for the children that we see. We give ourselves and our families this very challenging goal because we don’t believe in having limiting views on what a child can achieve in life.
We know that if we set the very highest goals for ourselves and for our parents that we have the best possibility of achieving that ultimate goal — wellness. When I say wellness, it is very important that parents understand that I mean well, like their normal peers, for them to go to school and succeed in life.
Our goal for children with special needs is lifelong happy, healthy, productive lives, just like anyone else.
What are the core beliefs of The Doman Method?
The core belief, first of all, is that for children with special needs, you must treat the cause of the problem, rather than the symptoms. For most children with special needs, they go to many different therapists who treat their symptoms individually.
They might go to a speech therapy to develop speech, a physical therapist to progress in physical ability, and so on. The problem is that you cannot fix any problem by treating the symptoms, instead you need to treat the cause of the problem, which for these children happens to be in the brain. An injury to the brain is the cause of their developmental disability.
By treating the problem we can help reduce or eliminate those symptoms. So the first core belief is that we treat the cause of the problem, which is in the brain. The second is that parents are the very best therapists for their children, and we can give them the information that they need to help their children achieve amazing results.
We are all about parent empowerment — we teach parents the information they need to help their children develop in the best possible way.