About the Continuum Concept

The Continuum Concept is a philosophy on human nature and development that provides truly revealing insights for parents and parents-to-be.

Written in 1977 by Jean Liedloff, it has formed the basis of a parenting philosophy that believes that a baby whose instinctive, evolutionary expectations are met, grows up self-assured, confident and independent.

Jean Liedloff spent 2½ years deep in the South American jungle living with stone age Indians. Her experience challenged and eventually completely replaced her Western views on human nature and evolution.

She wrote:

Babies of the Yequana tribe, far from needing peace and quiet to go to sleep, snoozed blissfully whenever they were tired, while the men, women, or children carrying them danced, ran, walked, shouted, or paddled canoes. Toddlers played together without fighting or arguing, and they obeyed their elders instantly and willingly.

Babes in arms almost never cried and, fascinatingly, did not wave their arms, kick, arch their backs, or flex their hands and feet. They sat quietly in their slings or slept on someone’s hip — exploding the myth that babies need to flex to “exercise.” They also did not throw up unless extremely ill and did not suffer from colic. When startled during the first months of crawling and walking, they did not expect anyone to go to them but rather went on their own to their mother or other caretakers for the measure of reassurance needed before resuming their explorations. Without supervision, even the smallest tots rarely hurt themselves.

Liedloff questioned why the child-rearing experience of the Yequana Indians was so different to the North American experience. What she learnt would mark an important revolution in Western approaches to parenting.

Liedloff discovered that the Yequana approach to parenting is based on instinct - instinct developed and adapted over time as part of human evolution. Somewhere along the line, the Western approach has been to ignore or, worse, supress instinct, in favor of artificial, taught, parenting ‘techniques’. Rather than rely on our innate ability to care for our babies, we were listening to so-called experts. But according to Liedloff:

The second greatest babycare expert is within us, just as surely as it resides in every surviving species that, by definition, must know how to care for its young. The greatest expert of all is, of course, the baby — programmed by millions of years of evolution to signal his or her own kind by sound and action when care is incorrect. Evolution is a refining process that has honed our innate behavior with magnificent precision. The signal from the baby, the understanding of the signal by his or her people, the impulse to obey it — all are part of our species’ character.