![]() "I'm saying that understanding the basic primate way will help us make more informed choices about the kinds of parents we want to be." "I'm certainly not advocating that we should behave like monkeys and apes," she adds. ![]() "I wanted other clinical psychologists to be aware of some of our primate proclivities, because this information can be very useful in problem-solving with clients," explains Smith, who draws from more than 400 journal articles and books in primatology, evolutionary biology, cultural anthropology and clinical psychology to make her case. Smith's many years observing monkeys, as well as her experiences raising two daughters and working with troubled families in practice, led her to write "Parenting for Primates" (Harvard, 2006), a 436-page tome that argues nonhuman primates are experts in dealing with a range of difficult parenting issues today's humans face, including coping with single parenthood, using babysitters safely and reducing stress to avoid child abuse and neglect. ![]() All of this lays a foundation of attachment and trust that lasts a lifetime, she has observed: "As primate mothers show, when you respond quickly to your baby in the first few months, you can't spoil it!" she says. "Unlike most parents in the United States today, wild monkey mothers have the luxury of being able to feed on demand, carry their babies all the time, sleep with their babies and be responsive rather than doting," says Smith. Surprisingly enough, though, monkeys may have better advice for us, believes Smith, who before becoming a clinician studied apes and monkeys in the lab, field and academically-as well as at home, where she raised 50 cotton-top tamarins over 30 years, from 1972 to 2001. Most parents are familiar with the struggle to get their babies on feeding and sleeping schedules-the prescriptions for which vary according to the pediatric wisdom du jour, says Phoenix-based clinical psychologist Harriet J.
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