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How Inuit Parents Teach Their Children To Control Anger

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Terry Cullen

Jan 27, 2023

Canada

Categories:

Children, Inuit, Child Rearing, Anger, Emotions, Emotional Self-Regulation

Inuit parents teach their children something unique in our society today, the ability to control their anger. The source for this is an article from the Goats and Soda newsletter published by NPR on March 13, 2019.


Jean Briggs (1929-2016) was an anthropologist who lived on the Arctic tundra in northern Canada for 17 months and was adopted by an Inuit family back in 1970. Briggs observed, with amazement, that Inuit parents had a remarkable ability to control their anger.


She chronicled her observations in a book, Never in Anger. Briggs recounts two incidents. Once, an adult knocked a boiling pot of tea across the igloo damaging the igloo's ice floor. No adult seemed bothered by it. The person who created the accident picked up the teapot calmly and refilled it. Another time a fishing line that took several days to make snapped the first time used. No one got upset. Someone quietly voiced what to do, sew it back together.


How did adults acquire such patience and self-restraint, and how did they pass this along to their children? One day, Briggs watched a young mother playing with her two-year-old child as he picked up a pebble. She told him to throw the pebble at her and to hit her. When he did, she cried out in mock pain that it hurt. This approach was an intriguing parenting strategy. What was it intended to teach?


Inuit parenting may be one of the world's most nurturing and tender. The culture views scolding a child as inappropriate. But does that apply under every circumstance? Inuits do not view children as pushing and testing an adult's buttons. They understand that the child is upset, and it is the parent's job to figure out why. And if you resort to yelling at your child, it is considered demeaning, as though the adult was having a tantrum too, stooping to the child's level.


Clinical psychologists note that when you respond to your child in anger, you teach your child that anger is the appropriate response and that yelling is the means to solve your problem. Children do not know how to regulate their emotions, and they learn this from their parents.


So how do you teach your child not to do something, such as running out into traffic on the street, without stern discipline? Storytelling. The Inuits have oral stories passed along for thousands of years that are part of every child's, now adult's, memory. The stories are fun and adventuresome, appeal to a child's creative imagination, and convey an important message. As important as the stories are, the delivery is just as important. The parent tells the story with playfulness and gentleness, as absorbed in it as their child. Disciplining a child can be tense, but this approach turns it into play, something a child will respond to more readily and learn from more quickly.


When a child acts out in anger or throws a tantrum, Inuit parenting calls for waiting for the raw emotions to quiet down and then engaging the child in a playful drama getting them to confront their anger and understand the consequences of their actions. Parents teach their children not to let their anger get easily provoked, a part of emotional self-regulation. One truth everyone understands as an adult is that once you let your anger out, it is hard to dial it back.


Storytelling is a human universal. Human universals are features of culture, society, language, behavior, and mind found among all peoples known to ethnography and history. And humans have used storytelling throughout time to teach their children.


Most people will agree that the world seems quite angry and that angry voices dominate cultural conversations worldwide. And most would agree that this has been going on for several years.


We can change the conversation, but it does require honest self-appraisal and willingness to try something new. Community conversations and oral storytelling have been abandoned in many modern cultures though it is a human universal. Consider starting a group in your hometown. The topics can be wide-ranging, but the key is the participants share personal stories and lessons they learned from life experiences. People learn from each other. To the extent possible, keep the tone lighthearted and enjoy the time spent together. The group conscience can lead the selection of topics and even the group discussion with some moderation. There are many excellent resource materials on the internet to guide you.


Let's connect to a practice our ancestors developed and knew to be crucial to their survival. Now, more than ever, we need their help.


Photo courtesy of Vitantica.net

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