Scientology Parent is a website and community for parents and parents-to-be, created by Scientologist Tad Reeves shortly after the birth of his first child, and contributed-to by other Scientologists within the global Scientology community.
With parenting being a somewhat confusing subject, the aim of this site was to share how Scientology’s applied philosophy can be put to use to demystify the major challenges, frustrations and conundrums that parents face.
If you’re a parent, think back, for a second, to the first 5 seconds after you found out you were going to have a child. What was going through your head? For most of us, I think there was a period (long or short) of “What does this mean? What do I do? What…how…oh my…” before finally settling into the elation (or terror) afterwards as the reality of the situation sank in.
That manner of confusion (“What do I do now!?”) continues for most of us throughout our time as parents, and is what this site has aimed to address. The doctrine of Confusion and the Stable Datum is relevant:
A confusion can be defined as any set of factors or circumstances which do not seem to have any immediate solution. More broadly, a confusion is random motion. Until one selects one datum, one factor, one particular in a confusion of particles, the confusion continues. The one thing selected and used becomes the stable datum for the remainder. Any body of knowledge, more particularly and exactly, is built from one datum. That is its stable datum. Invalidate it and the entire body of knowledge falls apart. A stable datum does not have to be the correct one. It is simply the one that keeps things from being in a confusion and on which others are aligned.” – L. Ron Hubbard [ref]
If one is in a confusion about what to do, the first thing to do is pick something stable to start from – a bedrock to base all one’s other solutions on. Let’s take some examples of common stable data in parenting, like “the way my mom did it” or the opposite “I’ll never raise my children the way my mom raised me.” or “Tough love is the best way to raise children.” Each of these may or may not be right, but they may at least serve to lessen the confusion.
Here on this site, the parenting stable datum is:
“Children are not dogs. They can’t be trained like dogs are trained. They are not controllable items. They are, and let’s not overlook the point, men and women. A child is not a special species of animal distinct from man. A child is a man or a woman who has not attained full growth. Any law which applies to the behavior of men and women applies to children.” – L. Ron Hubbard [ref]
And that last line is key, for it opens up the massive and extremely workable body of knowledge in Scientology for our use in raising children.
Regarding Articles on this Site
This site is written by Scientology parishioners from around the world, regarding their thoughts and successes when applying Scientology to parenting. This is not an official publication of the Church of Scientology, and as such the writing on this site remains the opinion of each author and is not the official position of the Church. In all cases, the best way to clarify the position of the Church is to read the linked reference materials quoted in each article.
The site includes numerous quotations by Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, cited with the source of each. The reader is encouraged to study the full text of each of these quotes – as for the most part, these quotes are provided for context and are not meant to equate a full study of Scientology.
Suggestions for Further Study
Scientology is comprehensive religious philosophy that one can apply to virtually any facet of life. One will find in studying the basics of the Scientology religion countless tenets and data that can be applied toward making one a better parent, and conversely, in studying to be a better parent, one can find stable data of vast applicability elsewhere in life.
A great first study is the book Scientology: A New Slant on Life. In addition to being an excellent intro to Scientology as a whole, it also has a number of excellent chapters regarding children and family, which form the basis of a number of the articles on this site. The book is also available as an on-line extension course, so that you can get personalized supervision during your studies.