Levi had been born in a birth centre, with a midwife who had known Mara since the third month, and afterwards Jonas had been off duty for half a year without anyone in the care team forgetting him. Now Levi was building a tree house with his class and doing sums voluntarily for the first time. Ida was in her time of orientation: three months by the sea with an enterprise that made nets, three months in a workshop that she left again after two weeks. No one wrote that into a CV.
When a child comes into the world, it is not only a biological event. It is an act of hope, a moment in which a society renews itself, and an invitation to everyone to take on responsibility. Everything this work designs will be carried by people who are still children today or not yet born. Whether they can carry it is decided in their first years, in their families, in their schools, and in whether they have someone who listens to them. This chapter is therefore about the foundation on which every lasting change rests.
Birth and Early Childhood
SOLIS does not understand birth as a purely private matter but as a shared task. Every child is valuable, not only for its family but for the whole of society. From the start, every expectant mother receives high-quality medical, psychological, and social support, antenatal care, obstetric care, and aftercare, regardless of her contribution, position, and place of residence, carried by a culture of care that lets women feel safe and respected. Because children do not grow up through their mothers alone, all the people close to them are included. Fathers, co-parents, grandparents, siblings, and chosen families find advice and support, and the diversity of family forms is recognized. A father receives not merely parental leave on paper but a network of help, so that he can be truly present at the start of family life.
Early childcare is a place of loving encouragement and not of mere custody. Small groups, trained professionals, and spaces for play, creativity, and attachment take the place of rigid timetables, and there is no pressure for early achievement, only offers oriented to the child. Because parenthood is often exhausting and lonely, no one stands alone. Family centres and midwives are fixed points of support, neighbourhoods organize mutual help, and obstacles of bureaucracy and scarcity are removed deliberately, so that even a young mother who can contribute little accepts support without shame. There are deep reasons for this. The first years of life shape the brain, the body, and the emotions, people who feel supported are better parents, and every child who grows up well is a gain for everyone. A society that already cradles a person’s first breath in dignity and community shows that its members stand up for one another.
Education and Support
Children are born learners. They ask why before they can speak, and they discover, feel their way, and play not out of compulsion but out of their own nature. SOLIS shapes education so that this innate joy in learning is not lost but preserved and strengthened. Today’s school systems often try to bring all children at the same pace through the same content to the same examinations, and in doing so they overtax some and undertax others. Here children learn individually, at their own pace, with their own interests, and building on their own strengths. A child who is fascinated by nature may research and experiment. A child who burns for numbers receives additional challenges without being labelled. A child who blossoms in art is supported as a full part of the community and not treated as second-rate.
In this education, mistakes are not a flaw but signs of where there is still something to discover. In place of the fear of bad marks and the division into clever and stupid comes the encouragement to try another way, to reflect, and to grow. Teachers are not mere transmitters of material but companions and mentors who smooth the paths of learning and support emotional, social, and creative development. This means less frontal teaching and more shared projects and work on relationships, and in the schools teachers, social educators, artists, and researchers work together in teams. Creativity, cooperation, and social intelligence stand on an equal footing with the classic subjects. Art is not a minor subject, teamwork is a key skill, and practising compassion counts as much as factual knowledge.
A single project shows how closely all this works together. When children build a tree house together, it combines the mathematics of statics and measurements, the biology of suitable trees and of nature conservation, the language of documentation, the design of art, and the ethics of cooperation and responsibility. The result is lively, practical learning that has nothing to do with isolated memorizing for the exam. Such an education sees the child as a whole person and brings forth the creative, reflective, and courageous people who can shape change. Above all, however, it connects with the maturity that the chapter on education establishes. It cultivates independent thinking and the ability to ask questions from the start, instead of drilling docility, because the challenges of this century cannot be solved with a school from the century before last.
Family Structures
The family is among the oldest and most powerful social structures of humanity, but it is not a rigid model. It changes with time, culture, and living conditions. SOLIS therefore understands the family not as a fixed template but as a living, flexible, and loving network, and it strengthens every form of family bond that is carried by care, responsibility, and affection, whatever it looks like.
This removes the invisible norm that in many of today’s systems allows only one form of family to count as natural and merely tolerates all others. Same-sex parents, blended families, single parents, chosen families without biological ties, and households spanning several generations are recognized as equal, as long as they rest on care and mutual respect. There is no discrimination in rights and benefits, no moral judgment from outside, and no ranking between the traditional and the modern. At the centre stands not a social notion of morality but the well-being of the child. Support, education, health care, and care are oriented to what children and the people close to them actually need, and not to whether they fit a particular model. A single father has the same rights as a couple, a same-sex couple exercises parenthood jointly without bureaucratic hurdles, and a chosen family of adult friends who raise a child counts as a full family. In SOLIS, parenthood means responsibility, not ownership. Where parents fail, the community accompanies them instead of judging them.
So that families really have time for one another, working arrangements are conceived differently. Flexible part-time work, shared positions, sensibly limited work from home, parental leave for all genders, and support for relatives who provide care are not a luxury but a cornerstone of social health. A father can take several months of parental leave without endangering his path in the enterprise, and grandparents who spend a lot of time with their grandchildren count as a recognized part of the family network. The work of caring and raising children is not only valued more highly in cultural terms. As the economic order lays down, it counts as a contribution that earns value points and earned points, not as a private sacrifice but as a service for everyone. Thus the family is relieved instead of overburdened, and it is not a private building site that collapses under growing pressure but a value carried by the whole of society. A society that invests in its families builds up cohesion, resilience, and emotional health in the long run.
Protected Spaces and Emotional Development
Children need more than education, food, and a roof over their heads. They need emotional security: spaces in which they may make mistakes, learn trust, express feelings, and develop resilience. In SOLIS, emotional health is therefore not a side issue but a central aim. This includes stable, reliable people to whom children can turn with their worries without first making an appointment or going through official channels. Trusted teachers who are visible and approachable, key educators in the nurseries, and neighbourhood centres with open doors give children the certainty that someone is listening and takes them seriously. This reduces fear and helplessness and strengthens courage and a sense of agency. Added to this are programmes for resilience, mindfulness, and compassion that are a fixed part of everyday life, because emotional strength is not innate but grows when it is cultivated. Children learn early to recognize and regulate their feelings, to put themselves in others’ shoes, and to argue fairly, and they experience that setbacks are part of life and how to deal with them in a healthy way.
Because the digital world is both a playground and a risk for children, media literacy is trained early. A child learns not only to operate a device. It understands how social media work, recognizes the difference between real information and manipulation, and grasps that approval online is no measure of its own worth, a direct continuation of the maturity that the work establishes elsewhere. If a child nevertheless becomes the target of bullying, it is not left alone. Structures intervene early, and in place of mere punishment comes real work on relationships, which strengthens the child affected and at the same time understands that the child who bullies often needs support too, the same restorative spirit that shapes the legal system. Thus SOLIS takes the heart as seriously as the mind, because emotionally strong children become reflective and compassionate adults who carry a healthy society.
Youth, Identity, and Finding Oneself
Youth is a phase like no other. Body and mind change quickly, and questions press in that were hardly there before: who one is, where one belongs, what one wants to do with one’s life, and what freedom, responsibility, and meaning signify. In many societies this time is considered a problem phase, and young people are treated as a disruptive factor or as a risk that has to be controlled. SOLIS, by contrast, understands youth not as a threat but as a valuable time of transition, of searching, trying out, and growing, which deserves particular attention.
Young people need spaces in which to discover themselves without being judged or punished straight away, and SOLIS creates them: creative workshops, sports facilities, youth centres, digital platforms, and political and social projects to take part in. A youth centre therefore offers not only a billiard table but workshops for music, environmental projects, ideas for new enterprises, philosophy, and theatre, in which young people find out with their peers and with adults what moves them. Support in finding oneself happens without pressure and without disparagement. Young people have the right to ask, to doubt, and to reinvent themselves, and mentoring, counselling, and peer networks are aimed at strengthening identity instead of breaking it, in a climate of trust, respect, and freedom. And because the search takes time, the order expressly keeps time free for it. Between school and training lies a time of orientation in which young people may travel, help out, try things, and fail, without a CV punishing them for it.
In this time, sensitive questions also break open, for instance about sexuality, about one’s own gender, about faith, and about political convictions. In SOLIS these questions may be asked and discussed openly, and young people have the opportunity to find their own voice in a protected and attentive setting with competent support. It is not about steering them in a predetermined direction, but about helping them find their own, fully in the spirit of the maturity and the flexible understanding of identity that the work sets out earlier. This is decisive, because confident and well-supported young people have better prospects of a fulfilled life, and a society that strengthens its youth gains creativity, inventiveness, and stability. Children and young people are not only future adults. They are already full members of the community with their own rights, needs, and dreams, they share in deciding what they need, and an order that recognizes this steers forward together with them.