Food & feeding
Taste, breastfeeding and the move to solid food — why children approach nourishment in ways that can look anything but reasonable.
Eating · Breastfeeding · SolidsThe international bestseller — now in English
The TreasureWithin
How evolution helps us understand and raise our children
Children amaze us every day. Yet they also leave us with countless questions. This book uncovers the good reasons behind behavior that can seem difficult, irrational or simply exhausting.
300 pagesPublished July 2026ISBN 978-3-945090-63-3
The questions keep coming
Children are full of surprises.
Especially when they refuse to follow the script grown-ups had in mind.
A different starting point
Children have good reasons.
Rather than asking what a child lacks, Herbert Renz-Polster asks what advantage a puzzling behavior once offered. Why resist sleeping alone? Why distrust a green leaf? What is a tantrum trying to accomplish?
Many traits that test parents today helped children survive and thrive throughout human evolution. Seeing their hidden logic does not make every moment easy. It does make childhood more understandable — and gives parents more confidence, patience and trust.
Inside the book
A new map of everyday childhood
From first foods to restless nights, from the first “no” to the long road toward independence.
Nights & needs
Sleep, closeness and crying — what nighttime behavior reveals about safety, regulation and the unusual childhood humans evolved to have.
Sleep · Co-sleeping · CryingBecoming a self
Tantrums, toilet learning, independence and attachment — the great developmental work hidden inside the messiest years.
Autonomy · Attachment · Growing upNature & culture
What other cultures can teach us, what they cannot, and why an evolutionary view is a lens rather than a recipe for “natural parenting.”
Culture · Community · ContextA lens, not a law
Evolution is not another parenting manual.
The past cannot tell modern families exactly how to live. Culture matters. Circumstances matter. Every child is different.
Evolution contributes one clear, useful question: Why? Why did a behavior become part of childhood in the first place? The answer helps parents move beyond trends and dogmas without turning nature into a new dogma of its own.
Read the full answerNot just another guide book for parents — a new paradigm for understanding children.
100,000+German copies sold
12+German editions and counting
4Translations published internationally
The German original, Kinder verstehen, is one of Europe’s bestselling parenting books. It has been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Polish and Russian.
Look a little closer
Three questions. Three surprising answers.
01
Do some children’s behaviors no longer fit today’s world?
Why sleeping alone and unfamiliar vegetables can trigger old safety programs in a thoroughly modern home.
Read the answer 02Are children naturally “bad” eaters?
A sweet tooth and suspicion of greens once served a purpose. Children also bring a powerful program for learning what their community eats.
Read the answer 03Does evolution have anything to say about parenting?
It offers a disciplined question — why? — not a new dogma or a command to copy the past.
Read the answer
The English edition
See your child with new eyes.
Paperback · 300 pages · Sefa Verlag · July 2026
Buy on Amazon ISBN 978-3-945090-63-3