Las culturas mas antiguas del mundo siempre han dominado el arte de criar ninos felices y bien adaptados. ?Que podemos aprender de ellos?

Una lectura obligatoria para las mamas y los papas que buscan soluciones inteligentes y creativas a los problemas de crianza que mas nos preocupan y frustran.

Despues de ser madre, la periodista cientifica Michaeleen Doucleff, curiosa por aprender acerca de metodos de crianza mas efectivos que los que actualmente practicamos en Occidente, decide visitar una aldea maya en la peninsula de Yucatan. Alli se encuentra con mamas y papas que lo son de una manera totalmente diferente a la nuestra y que crian ninos extraordinariamente amables, generosos y serviciales sin tenerles que gritar o reganar. Enseguida se da cuenta de que la mayoria de los grandes desafios a los que nos enfrentamos los padres occidentales como inculcar amabilidad, empatia y confianza en los pequenos no resultan un problema en otras culturas.

Pero, ?que mas nos estamos perdiendo de la sabiduria ancestral? Tras hacerse esta pregunta, la autora decide partir con su hija Rosy de tres anos para aprender y practicar estrategias de crianza de distintas familias en tres de las comunidades mas venerables del mundo: los mayas en Mexico, los inuit sobre el Circulo Polar Artico y los hadzabe en Tanzania.

Estas familias demuestran no tener los mismos problemas con los ninos que nosotros y logran construir una relacion muy diferente con los pequenos que se basa en la cooperacion en lugar del control, en la confianza en lugar del miedo y en las necesidades personalizadas en lugar del desarrollo estandarizado.

Michaeleen Doucleff es corresponsal de Science Desk de NPR. En 2015, formo parte del equipo que gano un premio George Foster Peabody por su cobertura del brote de ebola en Africa Occidental. Tiene un doctorado en Quimica de la Universidad de California, Berkeley, y vive con su esposo y su hija en San Francisco.

ENGLISH DESCRIPTION

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?

Hunt, Gather, Parent is full of smart ideas that I immediately wanted to force on my own kids. -Pamela Druckerman, The New York Times Book Review

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 Yucatan 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.