Though not written as a child-rearing manual, The Continuum Concept has earned a reputation as an excellent resource for parents and parents-to-be who intuitively feel that the parenting "techniques" of the modern era are inherently misguided... If you want to restore more fully your natural instincts -- especially for parenting -- we heartily suggest you get your hands on a copy of the book and let it transform your consciousness.

After five visits to the Yequana of the Amazon jungle in South America, Jean Liedloff wrote a book about her belief that the mental, emotional and physical vitality of the Yequana was due to their child rearing practices. She observed that the Yequana, unlike most Western mothers, were in constant physical contact with their babies until the babies started moving around on their own. By day mothers carried their babies in slings. This way the baby had access to the breast and could nurse at will. By night each family shared a single sleeping place, allowing the baby's attachment to the mother to proceed uninterrupted.

Liedloff noticed that the babies were not the center of their mothers' attention. The mothers would stop and lovingly address the baby's signals; otherwise they went about tending to household, village and social needs, and the infant was simply along for the ride. She noted, too, that Yequana parents and other adults didn't initiate contact or activity with their children after babyhood, but were readily available when the children needed them. Children spent most of their time with their peers, as did the adults with theirs. Because Yequana parents placed such great faith in a child's instinct for self- preservation, the children enjoyed a great deal of freedom and displayed a corresponding level of autonomous functioning rarely seen in children in the West.

She decided to call her book The Continuum Concept, to indicate that the children of the Yequana were happy, competent and self-assured because the Yequana were still in touch with their "continuum," or the evolutionary knowledge, with which all humans are born, of the way human beings are supposed to live.

According to Jean Liedloff, the continuum concept is the idea that in order to achieve optimal physical, mental and emotional development, human beings ? especially babies ? require the kind of experience to which our species adapted during the long process of our evolution.

For an infant, these include such experiences as...

* constant physical contact with his mother (or another familiar caregiver as needed) from birth;
* sleeping in his parents' bed, in constant physical contact, until he leaves of his own volition (often about two years);

* breastfeeding "on cue" ? nursing in response to his own body's signals;

* being constantly carried in arms or otherwise in contact with someone, usually his mother, and allowed to observe (or nurse, or sleep) while the person carrying him goes about his or her business - until the infant begins creeping, then crawling on his own impulse, usually at six to eight months;

*having caregivers immediately respond to his signals (squirming, crying, etc.), without judgment, displeasure, or invalidation of his needs, yet showing no undue concern nor making him the constant center of attention;

*sensing (and fulfilling) his elders' expectations that he is innately social and cooperative and has strong self-preservation instincts, and that he is welcome and worthy.

She suggests that when certain evolutionary expectations are not met as infants and toddlers, compensation for these needs will be sought, by alternate means, throughout life, resulting in many forms of mental and social disorders.