A fascinating book "When the grass is green: the Indian child" that introduces us, rather than as an anthropological study, as a direct approach, has fallen into my hands parenting in redskins Americans, in those times when they lived in the countryside.
The data, although partial, offer us, with a translated compilation of texts written by the Indians of the time and accompanied by photos of Indian children, an approach to another way of raising, in the background very human and close by it.
Discover the way they raised and educated those kids redskins, their games, their freedom, their way of growing in society, makes me think that, despite the remoteness, there is much to learn from them.
I leave some small texts that have moved me, like this one in which a boss tells us about childhood in freedom:
When Lakota children played alone or in a group, they could roam the countryside without fearing distances since they grew up without space restrictions. They were accustomed to great distances, they knew if the sky was announcing a storm, and they knew the deep meaning of the word freedom.
Or this one, about the importance of oral narration as an enculturation formula.
The Children of the Sun loved to hear stories by the fire. In its simple and natural life, storytelling was one of the main forms of entertainment, not to mention that it was also the means of transmitting the history, culture and beliefs of the tribe. The evenings in which stories were told were as important to traditional outdoor life as the lessons taught in the classroom for modern schools
And the children are children. They need example, attention, games, freedom, models, time, stories, experiences and, above all, share time with their parents to grow up healthy and feel integrated in society as people, not as person projects.
Sometimes I think we have a lot to learn from other disappeared cultures, when the weather was not so fast, when the children lived in a tribe that educated and attended them, when they had more freedom to grow outdoors and I think that they lack, Despite all the advantages, to our children. That's why I liked reading so much about breeding red skins.
In Babies and more | What would human upbringing look like in the natural state? Naked monkeys: breeding according to Desmond Morris
