What ancient cultures can tell us about raising children BY THE METROFAMILY EDITORIAL TEAM Primitive Parenting Tips
DR. MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF’S BOOK HUNT, GATHER, PARENT EXPLORES HOW IMPLEMENTING PARENTING STRATEGIES FROM ANCIENT CULTURES CAN BENEFIT FAMILIES.
How did you initially get interested in how other cultures parented their children, and what did you observe that resonated with you? My husband and I were really struggling with our 2-year-old daughter, Rosy. It just always seemed like there were tantrums, big feelings and conflict between us that regardless of what parenting trick we tried, the situation didn’t improve. At that time, NPR sent me down to this little tiny village in the Yucatan, a little Mayan village, to do a different story, but the parents there completely changed everything I thought I knew about parenting. My way of parenting was like this white knuckle ride on category five rapids — drama, screaming, tears galore. And the Mayan parents, especially the moms I was visiting with, they were on this calm, gentle river through a beautiful mountain valley. There was no yelling, no nagging, no bickering. And no resistance from the children. And yet the parenting was really effective. Kids were respectful of their parents. They were generous with each other. And they were super helpful. I left there with an incredible amount of hope. Like I can’t even get my 2-year-old not to hit me, but I observed a Mayan mom who has five kids and she has them doing chores without even being told. It was the first inkling in my mind that maybe I’m not a bad parent, maybe my culture hasn’t taught me how to be a good parent. As I started studying and traveling more, I realized that the approach in the Yucatan isn’t unique at all. It’s actually really common around the world. And if you look throughout human history, even in parts of Western culture today, this is the way parents have traditionally interacted with and raised children. We’ve kind of gone off path the last hundred years or so and forgotten this way of interacting with children.
What if you were able to easily incorporate parenting techniques that resulted in happy, cooperative, empathetic children — without yelling, nagging, bribing and rewarding? If you’re parenting kids of any age, this may sound impossible! However, maybe we need a new perspective and different tools for our parenting toolkit that have actually been honed and practiced successfully for thousands of years. That’s the basic premise behind the New York Times best- selling book Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by NPR journalist Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff. The ideas and practices in her book are easy to implement and are designed to create much calmer households. We interviewed Doucleff to get to the heart of why ancient parenting practices can often work more effectively than our Western, modern ways of parenting.
12 METROFAMILYMAGAZINE.COM / SEPT-OCT 2022
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