David Lancy, PhD, anthropologist and author of "Raising Children: Surprising Insights From Other Cultures" and I sit down to talk about our incessant desire as parents to teach children everything.

We discussed:
-David's own journey through fatherhood as an anthropologist who was raising his daughters in a vastly different culture from the US
-Our adult-driven teaching tendencies (think baby flash cards, kindergarten readiness obsession, singing/reading/playing with our children), and how these differ vastly from many other culture's beliefs about how children learn (and how adults' time should be spent)
-What we may be missing out on when we focus exclusively on teaching academics (think basic skills like budgeting, laundry, etc.)
-The important role that older children play in the lives of younger children, particularly with regards to modeling appropriate cultural behavior/skill sets
-how we can relax a bit more and trust that our children don't necessarily need explicit instructions for every task, and may benefit from being allowed to figure things out on their own

Here are my favorite books by David Lancy:
The Anthropology of Childhood: www.amzn.com/B00N4PM61E
Raising Children: www.amzn.com/1108415091

More of David's work can be found here:
https://anthropology.usu.edu/people/directory/lancy-david