Book Review: Hunt, Gather, parent.
Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff was all in all worth the read.
If you haven’t read it yet, here’s a short description from Simon and Schuster:
“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.”
I really liked what some of the families she interviewed had to say, specifically:
‘’Getting angry isn’t going to solve your problem. It only stops communication between the child and mom….When you yell at children, they stop listening.” (144,145)
“Parents don’t force children to do chores or work, but they organize their household and the context for children to develop those skills.” - Lucia Alcala (85)
“Think about your kid’s nervous system almost like a volume dial. My job is to help my kid’s dial go down. And to do that, it first starts with me. If I yell or join the chaos, I’m turning his volume dial up. So my job is to think about my own dial and make sure my dial doesn’t get turned way too high or too low.”-- Tina Bryson (172)
“After meeting Myna, I start to see Rosy’s misbehavior in a different light. I realize that many times when I think she is “pushing boundaries” (or my buttons), she is actually trying to practice proper behavior. She keeps repeating the wrong behavior over and over again, until she finally makes the right decision.” (221)
Though I found Michaeleen's interpretation of some of the advice given to her to be taken out of context when applied to her own life and parenting, I respected the perspective and philosophies I was able to take away from her experiences living with indigenous families.
I’ve found myself using some of the methods mentioned in my own practice.
Recently I had a family ask me about hitting. Their daughter would come out to someone in the family say, “Lyra hit”, wait a beat, and then proceed to smack her unlucky victim. THis was done seemingly out of the blue and not in anger.
My first thought when hearing this was “What is Lyra trying to get from this encounter?”
My initial answer was that it seemed that lyra was looking for both physical feedback, and a way to relate to those around her in a physical way.
I then remembered what Michaleen calls “ the physicality tool”. Maria, the great-grandmother in the Inuit family Michaleen had stayed with demonstrated that sometimes responding with high-energy physicality reduces tension and distracts the toddler from their destructive behavior.
In the book, Maria’s great-grandson scratched her face. Part of their cultural belief is that children are “without mind” and don’t understand that what they do is hurtful. Knowing this, she was able to respond with physicality instead of anger. She scooped up her toddler great-grandson and began to fly him in circles around the room like an airplane. They both laughed and the situation de-escalated. (173)
Drawing from this example, I figured a great way to address what I thought Lyra was trying to communicate– a need for a time of physical and sensory feedback through body movement/rough play and a need for connecting with others– could be addressed through a similar response.
I suggested that the next time Lyra came around announcing “Lyra hit!”, but before she actually has begun to swing, they scoop her up and swing her around, hang her upside down, give her an airplane ride around the room- anything physical and silly they can think of.
After a few times, Lyra would come up and rather than announce the upcoming attack would instead ask for an airplane ride.