Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us about the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans a book by Michaeleen Doucleff

I once read in a parenting book that one way to deal with kids’ tantrums is to “parent with awe.” In Hunt, Gather, Parent, Michaeleen Doucleff observes the way some Inuit mothers are able to calm children by encouraging them to turn their attention toward beautiful, worldly things.

Learning about the lives of hunter-gatherers confirms a suspicion that our modern lives are fundamentally at odds with human nature, that we have lost some kind of primordial freedom. […]

‘A fair case can be made that hunters often work much less than we do, and rather than a grind the food quest is intermittent, leisure is abundant, and there is mo... See more

Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans. These techniques don’t build the skills kids need for life, or account for their complex emotional needs. Add to that parents’ complicated relationships w... See more

Parenting with less money is hard in so many compounding ways — so how do we explain why it’s also  more  enjoyable and  more  rewarding? Sociologist Annette Lareau offers the most broadly accepted explanation: middle and upper-class parents approach parenting as a form of “concerted cultivation,” in which they work ti

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The three keys to peaceful parenting:

• Regulate your own emotions:“Our ability to self-regulate might have the biggest impact on who our child turns out to be compared to anything else we do”


• Connect with your kids


• Coach instead of punishing

Playful Parenting is a way to enter a child’s world, on the child’s terms, in order to foster closeness, confidence, and connection.

Contemporary research has shown that children do pretty well when offered autonomy. 

Many 80s parents practiced what University of Pennsylvania sociologist Annette Lareau, PhD, has come to call “accomplishment of natural growth.” That’s the idea that parents are there to provide kids with food, safety and love, in order to facilitate a self-dir... See more