When I was about nine years old, I wanted a personal fan for my room. We had a hairdryer. So I did what any reasonable child would do — I took the hairdryer apart, removed what I thought were the unnecessary electronics, and connected the motor directly to the wall power supply.
The plan was simple: motor plus power equals fan.
What actually happened: the motor blew up. The mains tripped. The whole house went dark. By the grace of God, I walked away without a scratch.
My mother was less impressed with the engineering than I was.
That curiosity — about how things actually work, what makes them turn, why they fail when they fail — eventually became my career. I’m a mechanical engineer. I think in systems. I think in inputs and outputs. I think in fit-for-purpose design and user requirement specifications.
And when Leesha and I started trying to figure out how to raise our children intentionally, that exact same instinct kicked in.
The parenting world doesn’t think in systems
Most parenting advice is anecdotal. “My child did this at that age.” “I tried this and it worked.” The WhatsApp groups, the Facebook communities, the Instagram influencers — they give you fragments. A tip here, a hack there, a product recommendation that worked for their specific child.
None of it connects into a system. None of it tells you: what are the inputs? What are the outputs? How do the parts interact? Where are the dependencies?
As an engineer, that drove me mad. It’s like trying to build an engine by collecting random parts from different cars and hoping they’ll work together.
When I design a mechanical system at work, the first thing I do is write a user requirement specification. What does this thing need to do? What are the load conditions? What are the failure modes? What are the metrics for success?
Leesha tells me this is exactly why I needed her on this project. Because she looks at me writing a user requirement specification for our children’s development and says: “Alton, don’t make this sound like a university degree.”
She’s right. Every time.
The four pillars: engineering language meets parent language
The Zedek Tikkun Model is what happens when an engineer applies systems thinking to child development — and then his wife makes him translate it into something a human being would actually use.
The academic framework has eight developmental objectives distributed across four pillars, with weighted scoring and clinical triage logic. That’s the engineering layer. It’s rigorous. It’s peer-review grade.
The parent-facing layer? Four words: Physical. Personal. Potential. Purpose.
That’s Leesha’s contribution. She pushed me from the eight-objective model to the four-pillar model because she knew what I couldn’t see: a tired mother at 9pm doesn’t need eight categories. She needs four. She needs to glance at a dashboard and know: is my child developing across body, heart, mind, and soul?
I build the engine. Leesha designs the dashboard. That partnership is why it works.
Cost-per-use: the pram, the cot, and the R700 toy
Here’s an engineering principle that changed how we spend money as parents: cost-per-use is a better metric than upfront cost.
When Elijah was born in 2019, Leesha and I spent more than we wanted to on a pram, a camp cot, and a feeding chair. Six years later, all three have survived three children. Three kids’ worth of daily use, on gear we bought once.
Compare that to the toys. In 2023, I picked up a flying toy from a big red toy shop in London. Thirty pounds — about R700 at the time. It didn’t fly. Not the first time, not the second time, not any time. R700 down. Twelve minutes of excitement. Straight to the broken-toy graveyard in our garage.
The R5,000 pram used for six years costs about R3 a day. The R700 toy that broke in a week costs R100 a day.
We apply the same principle to Zedek. We’re not the cheapest option. We’re built to last. Every resource, every recommendation, every framework has been tested in our own home first. If it didn’t survive three children, it doesn’t ship to yours.
What this means for you
You don’t need to be an engineer to parent intentionally. You just need a framework — something that tells you what to focus on, in what order, and how to know if it’s working.
That’s what we built. Not a collection of tips. A system. Four pillars, 138 milestones, 12 age bands, calibrated to the CDC’s 75th percentile standard. With a clear set of outputs: you know where your child stands, you know where to focus, and you know what to do next.
See where your child stands — take the free assessment →
— Alton