NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The oldest cultures in the world have mastered the art of raising happy, well-adjusted children. What can we learn from them?
When
Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff becomes a mother, she examines the studies
behind modern parenting guidance and finds the evidence frustratingly
limited and the conclusions often ineffective. Curious to learn about
more effective parenting approaches, she visits a Maya village in the
Yucatán Peninsula. There she encounters moms and dads who parent in a
totally different way than we do—and raise extraordinarily kind,
generous, and helpful children without yelling, nagging, or issuing
timeouts. What else, Doucleff wonders, are Western parents missing out
on?
In Hunt, Gather, Parent, Doucleff sets out with her
three-year-old daughter in tow to learn and practice parenting
strategies from families in three of the world’s most venerable
communities: Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic
Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. She sees that these cultures
don’t have the same problems with children that Western parents do. Most
strikingly, parents build a relationship with young children that is
vastly different from the one many Western parents develop—it’s built on
cooperation instead of control, trust instead of fear, and personalized
needs instead of standardized development milestones.
Maya
parents are masters at raising cooperative children. Without resorting
to bribes, threats, or chore charts, Maya parents rear loyal helpers by
including kids in household tasks from the time they can walk. Inuit
parents have developed a remarkably effective approach for teaching
children emotional intelligence. When kids cry, hit, or act out, Inuit
parents respond with a calm, gentle demeanor that teaches children how
to settle themselves down and think before acting. Hadzabe parents are
world experts on raising confident, self-driven kids with a simple tool
that protects children from stress and anxiety, so common now among
American kids.
Not only does Doucleff live with families and
observe their techniques firsthand, she also applies them with her own
daughter, with striking results. She learns to discipline without
yelling. She talks to psychologists, neuroscientists, anthropologists,
and sociologists and explains how these strategies can impact children’s
mental health and development. Filled with practical takeaways that
parents can implement immediately, Hunt, Gather, Parent helps us rethink the ways we relate to our children, and reveals a universal parenting paradigm adapted for American families.
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