May 21, 2019
Inuit culture uses storytelling to create “cool-headed” adults.
During the 1960s, anthropologist Jean Briggs lived for about a year and a half in an Inuit community, an indigenous people who inhabit the territory we call Canada, and observed that in that culture, showing signs of anger was considered childish and weak. The adults she met did not show or did not seem to feel anger. Based on this perception, Briggs began to wonder: how do stubborn children become such calm adults? Decades later, the United States' National Public Radio (NPR) returned to that community to better understand this phenomenon.
No shouting
There is a consensus among Inuit mothers that one should not yell at young children. Raising children in the traditional way involves a lot of affection — including a special kiss for babies, in which the adult puts his or her nose on the baby's cheek and smells the skin — and very little scolding. In this culture, scolding, yelling or even speaking in an angry voice to children is considered inappropriate, regardless of what the child has done.
For the Inuit, even if parents think their children are throwing tantrums just to provoke them, that’s not what’s really happening. They believe that aggressive behavior in children must be a symptom of a cause that adults should be able to figure out. In fact, when they see an adult yelling at a child, they get the impression that the child is the one throwing a tantrum and stooping to the level of the children. It’s behavior that’s seen as degrading to the adult. Lisa Ipeelie, an Inuit radio producer who grew up with 12 siblings and has young children, told NPR : “Raising your voice doesn’t help; it just makes your own heart rate go up.”
American psychologist Laura Markham points out that children learn to regulate their emotions by following their parents' example. Therefore, if an adult yells when they are angry, they are teaching the child the same association.
Well, if the Inuit don't shout or scold their children when they do something wrong, how do they educate their children? If your daughter pulls her younger brother's hair or if your son runs around the street without looking, how do you proceed without using an aggravated tone of voice?
Storytelling and staging
The ancient tradition of oral history is a key tool in traditional Inuit childrearing. Intense colonization—which until the middle of the last century included forcibly removing children from their communities and placing them in Canadian government boarding schools—has taken its toll on this form of education, but elders and their communities are working to keep the tradition alive for the future.
Stories are the way the Inuit try to avoid problems, but they also use them to solve them. They tell stories as a preventive tool and act out stories as a solution tool. All this without forgetting good humor, which is also central to this practice: children should have fun listening to and watching the stories.
Prevention
Goota Jaw, who teaches parenting at Arctic College — a college focused on Inuit communities — and Myna Ishulutak, a film producer, shared with NPR some examples of these stories passed down from generation to generation:
To keep children from getting too close to the sea, Inuit parents tell a story about what is supposed to be in the ocean: a sea monster that has a giant pouch on its back specifically for collecting little children. The monster likes to collect children who are alone near the water and take them to the bottom of the ocean where they are taken to another family. As a result, there is no need to shout at the child to stay away from the water because, having heard this story, the child will not want to be alone at the seashore. The message of danger is conveyed through the fantasy story.
In order for children to protect themselves from the cold of the night on the street, parents say that the Aurora Borealis — also known as the “northern lights” and present in the sky in regions inhabited by the Inuit — likes to play football with the heads of children who they are without a hat.
In this indigenous Arctic context, these stories are seen by these people as tools to save lives.
Resolution
When a child “throws a tantrum” or “misbehaves” — expressions we use to describe those moments when children act out of anger, whether by yelling, kicking or hitting — in our culture it is common to punish them. In Inuit culture, the reaction is different: instead of punishing, they remain silent until the child calms down, and then they act out a play.
More specifically, adults do a kind of reenactment of the child's bad behavior, for the child, from the action to its consequences.
The tone of the conversation is always playful. Even more surprising is that these conversations often begin with the parents provoking the child to repeat the bad behavior. So, for example, if the child is hitting his classmates at school, the mother or father may start the performance by saying “Why don’t you hit me?”. From this point on, the child has to start thinking about how to proceed, and if he takes the parents’ bait and hits them, instead of scolding them, the adults act out the consequences: “Ouch, that hurts!” And they continue with questions: “Don’t you like me? Are you a baby?” In a fun and light tone, the parents are making it clear that hitting others hurts, is hurtful, and is not appropriate behavior for children, being “baby stuff”. This type of re-enactment is done a few times, until the child stops hitting his parents and his bad behavior stops.
According to psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett, who studies how emotions work, this emotional exercise is a training platform, where children can test different reactions when they are not in the heat of anger. This way, they learn to control their feelings in the most stressful moments.
Adapted by Western parents using stuffed animals or dolls to act out the stories—a less extreme approach than those used by Inuit parents—these plays are, in effect, stages for children to develop their emotional control.
Remembering that the key elements are a tripod:
- Wait until everyone is calm;
- Ask lots of questions, keeping the child constantly involved during the role play;
- Be fun. Keep a light and playful tone. After all, play is the language of children!
These are just a few aspects of the traditional way the Inuit raise their children. Their customs, environments, beliefs, rituals and traditions are quite different from ours, and these practices are specifically geared towards raising Inuit children within their indigenous context. Therefore, it would not make much sense to adopt them for our children without taking into account all the cultural and contextual differences.
By sharing these cultural particularities linked to childhood, we hope to provoke reflections on different ways of favorably impacting children's emotional and social development.