As of: January 19, 2024, 6:01 a.m
By: Nico Reiter
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In the Amazon, children are integrated into adult life early on.
Experts disagree about whether this style of parenting would also be possible for us.
Quito - From child care to children's television programs: everything in our culture is perfectly tailored to the youngest.
The world of children is clearly separated from the adult world.
But that's not the case everywhere.
Where Western society cares for and protects children, there is no special treatment in other cultures.
But our upbringing is also changing.
There are now also trends that are intended to promote children's independence, such as “free range parenting”.
Jungle method – raising children in the Amazon
In the
Neue Züricher Zeitung
a woman reports on the differences in raising children between cultures.
She lived in England and Germany, her husband is from the Runa people in the Amazon region of Ecuador.
Some uncontacted peoples still live in the Amazon.
When she and her child visit his family in the region for the first time, she reaches her limits.
Unlike us, the child is not the center of the parents' life.
While on the one hand not everything is tailored to the child, at the same time not only the parents but the entire village are responsible for the children.
In the Amazon, offspring take part in daily adult life as much as possible.
As soon as they are able, they support their community with household chores, work and care for younger children.
Whether the so-called “jungle method” can also be used in our culture is now being discussed by a social educator and a developmental psychologist.
In the Amazon region, children also have to take on adult tasks at an early age, such as helping to raise their younger siblings.
(Archive image) © Sergi Reboredo/VWPics/IMAGO
Social educator per jungle method
Sefika Garibovic is an author and social educator.
She describes that other cultures can also benefit from the so-called “jungle method”.
“The jungle method promotes the development of independence, self-confidence and a sense of social responsibility in children,” says Garibovic.
“In Western education, children are pampered,” says the educator.
According to her, children are not included enough in life, to their own detriment.
“With us, the children are served and any kind of resilience is prevented,” is the author’s view.
According to one author, if you pamper children too much, you can even raise them to become narcissists.
According to a developmental psychologist, the jungle method cannot be transferred to other cultures
Trix Cacchione, head of developmental psychology at the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, does not completely agree with this view.
“Each method is tailored to the values and rules of the cultural community and what characteristics the children should have later on,” says Caccione.
Accordingly, parenting styles could only be transferred to other cultures to a limited extent.
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She suspects that the “jungle method” would make children more adaptable to society, but at the same time their own personalities would be less developed.
According to Caccione, there is no better or worse method: “Education is done with the local culture in mind, even if people are little aware of it.
You imitate the education you see or know.”
Which characteristics are valued in upbringing depends on cultural values.
An author, for example, explains how one supposedly raises particularly successful children.