‘Natural’ couple takes things to extreme: home school kids, say no to medicine and 5-year-old son is breast-fed

If Ulysses Allen seems closer to his mum than the ¬average five-year-old it may well be -because he is still breastfed. And like his sister Ostara, aged one, he spent the first week of his life ¬literally ¬attached to his mother Adele. Their ¬umbilical cords were not cut. They fell off naturally. When it comes to parenting, the natural approach adopted by Adele and husband Matt does not stop there, the Sunday People writes. Despite the shock and horror of all those around them, neither of the ¬children has ever seen a doctor. When vaccination reminders arrive they go straight in the bin. This is because the couple believe most major childhood illnesses are caused by emotional distress and the children won’t get seriously ill as long as they talk about their problems.

In a candid interview that will no doubt see them dubbed Britain’s most unconventional parents, Adele reveals she also thinks deadly diseases such as meningitis can be cured by fasting. And she is adamant the children will not go to mainstream schools. Ulysses cannot read, write or count yet as most of the time he is outside or drawing on the walls of their Brighton flat. Adele, 32, and Matt, 33, advocate an approach to family life they call ¬“off-grid parenting”.
Writer Adele said: “We ¬parent according to what we feel in our hearts. We don’t want our children to be ¬institutionalised.
“Everything is natural. We never wake them up at a set time, we want them to be in tune with their bodies. We have a positive approach to discipline and don’t call them bad or naughty. That is too negative.
“We think most illnesses are caused by emotional problems so we want to get to the root of them rather than fill the body with medicines that will only serve to make the problem worse.
“Ulysses is home-schooled but I haven’t tried to teach him numbers or the alphabet because I believe children naturally start decoding language around seven or eight. I’d much prefer he was outside enjoying nature.”
Adele became sceptical about conventional living in her twenties, after she found coconut oil helped her lose weight where other methods had failed. She and yoga teacher Matt began -researching alternative ways of ¬living. By the time they married six years ago they had rejected ¬traditional medicine and school teaching. They want to join an eco-friendly community in Costa Rica where they can grow all their own food. Their diet is almost -exclusively plant-based.
 “Breastfeeding is as natural as a hug and I’m not willing to tell Ulysses to stop until he makes the decision that he is ready. It’s comforting.”
After both births, Adele and Matt decided to leave the placenta and ¬umbilical cords attached to the children until they fell off naturally. She was physically attached to both babies for six days. Adele disguised the smell of rotting flesh with a mixture of rose petals and salt water. She said: “If babies were meant to have their umbilical cords cut at birth we’d be born with scissors. It worked beautifully and the umbilical cord eventually fell away to make a perfect belly button.