Stars: ★★★★★ (Study This Book)
Premise
Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff visits hunter-gatherer communities around the world and details their parenting methods. She then takes what she has learned and provides numerous examples of the way she applied those methods to her own daughter, whom many people would label difficult. Michaeleen explains how following the advice of indigenous parents completely changed her relationship with her daughter and details the myriad ways in which modern Western parenting fails both parents and children.
I loved this book so much. I read Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World, hoping for advice on doing exactly what the title claimed; however, this is a MUCH more effective method of reaching that end goal without the glaring problems that book had.
Loved
- The Practical Solutions
After the book establishes that the way we parent in America is WEIRD (Western Educated Industrialized Rich Democratic), untested, and generally unhelpful, she jumps right into the lessons she learned from indigenous communities and the ways to apply them. Each chapter ends with a recap and a list of ways to implement this in American homes. Theory quickly tires me out. Application wins every time, and this book is packed with ways to begin implementing the tactics immediately with “Try It” suggestions and suggestions on long term strategies so that the small changes take root. - Practice – Model – Acknowledge
There are many ways in which I already knew this intellectually, but the book made it so easy to actually use in real life. Of course our kids learn more from what we do than from what we say. Of course they are going to implement in their own lives the actions we allow them to practice. And of course they will continue methods that get them attention – both positive and negative. But taking that and explaining how I can incorporate my children into the real world AND reduce the conflict in my home was mind blowing.
If I want my children to see the parts of our home that need attention, like the dishes, the laundry, and the living, I have to let them practice addressing these, even though that is likely to take much longer than if I did the dishes and the laundry by myself. If I send my kids out to play every time I need to clean up, I am allowing them to practice playing instead of contributing. Five years down the road, how is it reasonable to expect them to suddenly know they should contribute instead of play?
The “Acknowledge” part of this formula looks so much different than I ever imagined. What have I learned as a WEIRD mom? Praise them. Say what a great job they did. Tell them how proud you are. Verbalize everything. Is there a better way? Simply accept their contributions to the family. Use the eggs they cooked for breakfast even when they are not cooked properly. In a very small example, Eliam wanted to help me write the numbers on our white board calendar. He wrote most of them backwards and not in the boxes. Acknowledging his work is leaving the numbers that way for the whole month, not correcting them myself later. I don’t have to tell him what a great job he did; I simply have to accept his contribution to the family. - Tools for Sculpting Behavior
Some of these I was super skeptical about at first until I remembered the very limited ways that I have implemented them before and how effective they were. One of the first ones was to ignore bad behavior in the moment and then talk about it later, especially through dramatization. Then I remembered that is exactly how we got Ana Lia to stop biting when she was a toddler. We intercepted her every time she went tried to bite someone, but then we acted it out later when everyone was calm. This book explains how to take that concept and apply it in other areas in order to teach children the correct way to interact with others, all without yelling.
The idea of telling my children stories about monsters made me very wary. I never want to lie to my children, especially about a monster in the refrigerator that would take her away. However, the more I considered what that looked like in real life, the more that I saw how it becomes a game, a playful way to address issues. - Quotations from Two Favorite Authors
Until now, whenever anyone asked my favorite parenting book, I immediately responded Playful Parenting. It changed the way that I conceptualized my relationship with my kids, and it made discipline possible without losing my temper. The author expands on the ways that playful parenting can be implemented in our homes and I love the stories of how it works for children of all ages around the world.
She also discusses the gift economy from Braiding Sweetgrass. It’s exciting when ideas from multiple sources begin to come together to make a practical difference in our lives. I can see how working with other families builds relationships. These relationships allow our children to practice the ideas we implement in our home and allow the parents to have friends and downtime, which allows all our homes to be happier.
Didn’t Love
I didn’t love that it took a white woman from San Francisco to deliver this information. The author provided a voice to these indigenous communities, but it would be even better if the women had a way to share this message themselves. They have so much to give that the world could benefit from, and I can only imagine how much is lost when it comes through an intermediary.
Lessons Learned
- “Discipline without words.” Again, mind blowing. But she walks through the variety of ways we can guide and discipline our children without speaking. If I am not speaking, then I am not yelling. If I have to carefully consider my every movement in order to communicate my intention without using words, how much self control will that take. How much calmer will my house be if I’m not trying to speak over everyone all the time? It may seem unbelievable. That was my first thought when I saw the subtitle, but she explains how to do it effectively and reduce the emotional temperature of the household consistently.
- The difference between independence and autonomy – I have always wanted to raise independent children, teach them to play independently, and learn to live as independent adults. The author walks through how American independence is one of the factors that leads to a lack of close relationships, which has a whole slew of negative consequences – loneliness, post-partum depression, overwhelm. When we teach our children to practice autonomy – learned skills within a community – we are teaching them to be adults that notice the needs of people around them and meet those needs to the extent that they can. As a part of that community, they also get their needs met by their friends and family.
- One of the final chapters is on cultivating alloparents for our children. Alloparents are other people in our lives that our children love and trust, who provide respite for parents but also an extended safety net for the kids. Our culture is not designed to create these relationships, so it take intentionality to make them. It was a good reminder that I should spend time doing that for my kids and for my friends’ kids.