Grow Up and Be A Parent – Even At Bedtime
Why Young Children Protest Bedtime: A Story of Evolutionary Mismatch
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedom-learn/201110/why-young-children-protest-bedtime-story-evolutionary-mismatch
“Bedtime protest [by children] is unique to Western and Westernized cultures. In all other cultures, infants and young children sleep in the same room and usually in the same bed with one or more adult caregivers, and bedtime protest is non-existent…”
“When people in non-Western cultures hear about the Western practice of putting young children to bed in separate rooms from themselves, often without even an older sibling to sleep with, they are shocked. ‘The poor little kids!’ they say. ‘How could their parents be so cruel?’ Those who are most shocked are people in hunter-gatherer societies, for they know very well why young children protest against being left alone in the dark…”
“…People battle their child rather than listen to the child and to their own gut instincts that tell them that any crying baby needs to be picked up, held close, and cared for, not left alone to ‘get over it…’”
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