Hunt, Gather, Parent: 3 Takeaways
“Parents see this mess as an investment. If you encourage the incompetent toddler who really wants to do the dishes now, then over time, they’ll turn into the competent nine-year-old who still wants to help—and who can really make a difference.”
― Michaeleen Doucleff
When Dr. Michaeleen Doucleff became a mother, she struggled immensely. Parenting wasn’t the peaches and cream she naively expected, she admits. With a Ph.D. in chemistry from Berkley, she turned to what she knew best: the scientific literature. She used it to guide her through the web of misinformation on parenting but it turns out that the validity of the recommendations for parenting topics--sleep training, feeding schedules, behavior management---was flimsy at best, and far from helping to ease the new parent struggle.
While working on an assignment as a journalist, Doucleff traveled to the Yucatán Peninsula to visit a Maya village. The initial plan was to study the topic of attention span in hunter-gatherer tribes but then she met a Mayan mother who had the exact opposite parenting style as her. And not only was it effective but everyone was happy.
This set her off on a quest to study a few of the remaining hunter-gatherer cultures: Maya families in Mexico, Inuit families above the Arctic Circle, and Hadzabe families in Tanzania. With her three-year-old daughter tagging along, Doucleff spent time with these parents to identify how they consistently raise cooperative kids. In her book, Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans she outlines the key skills that are used to parent.
These skills, which have been passed down for hundreds of thousands of years, often fly in the face of modern, Western parenting skills. Nowadays, we learn our parenting skills from social media, Google, and books (ironic, right?). These new parenting techniques—often driven by dollar signs—coincide with the contemporary nuclear family that evolved only generations ago and replaced the original hunter-gatherer communities which were vital to passing on ancestral wisdom that some indigenous tribes still practice today.
Here are a few of the key takeaways from Hunt, Gather, Parent.
1. Praise Less
Back in the 1980's and 90's there was a focus on giving kids as much self-esteem as possible (something discussed in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*uck which I talk about here). This led to the whole participation trophy debate which still rages today, but only in the West. Doucleff notes that "The concept of self-esteem exists. And we're definitely the only culture where parents are required to cultivate it and maintain it in their culture."
Psychology 101: Rewarding a kid (or any person or thing) provides extrinsic motivation. The issue with this is that kids become reliant on this extrinsic motivation which doesn't jive well with, you know, life. The obvious alternative is then to foster intrinsic motivation. Doucleff points out that 1,500+ studies on this type of motivation can be boiled down to three components.
1. Connectedness. Belonging to a team or family. Kids work harder in school when they feel connected to the teacher. They also work on chores and family goals when they feel connected to the family.
2. Sense of autonomy. Kids naturally want to help their parents or the adults around them. If they want to help them let them and if they want to stop then let them stop. Don’t force them to finish.
3. Sense of competency. If something’s too frustrating then no one wants to do it. if it’s too easy then no one wants to do it because it gets boring. The sweet spot is where intrinsic motivation happens, never through praise. In indigenous cultures, you won’t hear a “great job” for doing the dishes although they will communicate with small facial expressions to indicate approval.
2. Acomedido
During one of her visits to a Mayan village, Doucleff notes that she constantly sees something that she doesn't see back home in the U.S.: they initiate tasks like doing the dishes and cleaning the house. In a survey of Mayan moms, she said that about 75% of them said their kids routinely do this.
She calls this skill acomedido, or the skill of paying attention and then acting. "It's not just doing a chore or task because someone told you to, it's knowing which kind of help is appropriate at a particular moment because You're paying attention."
How to get your kid to be more acomedido
Turned over tasks to the least competent family member in the home, the toddler.
"All toddlers have two things in common. They have tantrums, and they're all eager to be helpful." Whatever the reason for the latter, take advantage of it. Instead of telling kids to get out of the way of the cleaning, involve them in it. It won't be the way you want it to be done but "the mess help is an investment for help down the road." Just make sure not to let them help every time with every task.
Ask for help, or at least make sure the kids are around to watch.
Babies (zero to walking age). Model it and just let them watch. Let them see you do the dishes, make the bed, fold the laundry. Wear them on your body to get more done. Wearing my daughter while I do things around the house works out great. I get more done and it's pure entertainment for her.
Ages 1 to 6. Once they're walking, ask for help. Give straightforward directions such as "put this fork away," "get me the broom," or "come over here and help me with the dishes.."
Important points for fostering acomedido:
Focus on teaching cooperation, not obedience. Don’t force the task. If they don't want to do it, that's fine. Forcing it paves a path of resistance in the future.
Don't overdo it. Three to four simple tasks in a day are enough.
Make it communal. "Let's all fold the laundry together." "Let's work together to bring the plates over to the table."
Acknowledge the value of what they're doing.
3. Managing Tantrums
Temper tantrums are unfortunately developmentally appropriate for toddlers. It is what it is so how do you deal with it? Here are some tools that Doucleff pulled from the toolbox of parents in hunter-gatherer tribes:
Parent with calmness. Doucleff says to use minimal words and minimal movement, think "Mr. Rogers stoned." When you demonstrate calm your child is more likely to mirror it. The same is true for being active. Our minds have a natural resonant circuitry that mimics the energy of others as a hostage negotiator, Chris Voss, talks about in Never Split the Difference. Model what you want.
Use physical touch. Touch is powerful and versatile. You can use it in the form of a hug to release oxytocin, tickling for laughter, or in the form of rough housing to release brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF, a neurotransmitter modulator that plays a role in survival and growth).
Cultivate awe. Point out something incredible that we take for granted. She uses examples of clouds, butterflies, or even weeds poking through the sidewalk.
Take the kid outside. This tops my list of most effective techniques (and my favorite). At the very least just go on the porch or out the front door but I've found that a walk up and down the block can make all the difference. Sometimes being inside is the cause of the tantrum itself so make getting outside a habit to prevent this.
Ignore it. The Inuits ignore tantrums for younger kids to see if they go away and tend to totally ignore them for older kids.
