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June 30 - July 2, 2025
myself, She is trying to help but doesn’t know how. I need to teach her. And that can take time.
It’s not my job to entertain the children. It’s their job to be part of the team.
If it helps, think 20-20-20: For 20 minutes each day, I’m at least 20 feet from my children, and for 20 minutes, I’m silent.
“This is not a place to play. It is a privilege to be here, and if you aren’t a big enough girl yet, you will have to leave.”
When you invite the child to help, remember the invitation is always to work together. You’re not asking the child to perform the task alone.
They don’t stop the child from doing something, even if it’s wrong.
Instead of praising children for helping with a request, switch to acknowledging overall helpfulness.
“Never yell at a child,”
“Our parents never yelled at us, never, ever.”
“When children are little, it doesn’t help to raise your voice, or get angry at them. It will just make your own heart rate go up.”
Inuit view yelling at a small child as demeaning, elders tell me. The adult is basically stooping to the level of the child—or throwing a grown-up version of a tantrum.
“Getting angry isn’t going to solve your problem. It only stops communication between the child and the mom.”
Over and over again, Inuit parents repeat this same idea, that yelling and shouting makes parenting harder because kids stop listening to you. They block you out. As
By contrast, parents who control their own anger—both around and toward their children—help their kids learn to do the same. “Kids learn emotional regulation from us,” Laura says. Every time you stop yourself from acting in anger, your child sees a calm way to deal with frustrations. They learn to stay composed when anger arises. So to help a child learn emotional regulation, the number one thing parents can do is learn to regulate their own emotions.
“If a little child doesn’t listen, it’s because she is too young to understand. She is not ready for the lesson.”
Basically, when a child doesn’t listen or behave, the reason is simple: The child hasn’t learned that particular skill yet. And perhaps, they aren’t quite ready to learn it. So there’s no reason for a parent to get upset or angry.
Because children are unreasoning beings, unable to understand that their distresses are illusory, people are at pains to reassure them.…
Kids are considered to be extremely bossy. Since they have not yet incorporated the culturally valued norms of patience, generosity, and self-restraint, kids often make excessive demands of others and become greatly upset if these are not forthcoming. Children are also viewed as being overly aggressive, stingy, and exhibitionist, all behaviors viewed as antithetical to ideal behavioral norms.
“Even when a child mistreats you, you don’t fight back with a young child,” she says. “Just leave the point alone. Whatever is wrong… eventually the behavior will get better.”
Inuit see arguing with children as silly and a waste of time, Elizabeth tells me, because children are pretty much illogical beings. When an adult argues with a child, the adult stoops to the child’s level.
But do not argue. Ever. It will never end well.III
Instead, she removes herself from the situation when she first detects signs of incoming anger. I think one of my problems was that I used to ignore the early signals of anger. By the time I acted, the emotion was so intense, I couldn’t control it. But recently, I have been paying more attention to the tiny inklings of frustration or annoyance that precede anger. Dealing with those milder emotions (e.g., by leaving the room) is much easier than wrangling in anger itself.
Come to think about it, every time you negotiate with a child, you simply train them to negotiate with you. Remember the first ingredient for passing along a value or trait: practice.
In many hunter-gatherer cultures, parents rarely scold or punish a child. They rarely insist that a child comply with a request or behave in a certain way. They believe that trying to control a child prevents their development and simply stresses the parent-child relationship.
I think this low-talk parenting style is a big reason kids in these cultures seem so calm. Fewer words create less resistance. Fewer words cause less stress.
When she says she’s hungry, we go prepare food together and we eat it. End. Of. Story.
The entire time we were in Tanzania and Mexico, I never heard a Hadzabe or Maya parent ask a child, “Do you want…?” And they surely never offered “choices.” But I do these things all the time.
“Everyone does what they want, but they must be kind, share, and be helpful.”
sonta,
Over the past decades, study after study has linked meaningful friendships and camaraderie to all kinds of health benefits. They decrease our risk for cardiovascular disease; boost our immune systems; and protect us from stress, anxiety, and depression. And when we do find ourselves trapped with a mental health problem, the more that we believe we have friends and families supporting us, the better chance we have of recovering from anxiety and depression.
Social support is so important for physical health that, in one study, having strong relationships correlated just as strongly with a longer life expectancy as being physically active or cutting out smoking. In other words, the time and energy you spend planting and cultivating deep, fulfilling friendships is likely just as crucial to your overall well-being as your afternoon run (or even not smoking).
Trust that the people in your neighborhood will take care of you. Trust that the forest will take care of you. Trust that people you meet will be kind, warm, and helpful. Trust that the world will provide for you.
Would I still have developed postpartum depression? I doubt it.
Rather, she needs time with a few key adults and children who know and love her just as much as her father and I do. What she needs is a circle of love that will lift her up and give her trust in the world.
Ideally, parents would disappear into the background and interfere only if a child is going to get hurt.
