[HN Gopher] How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger ...
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How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)
Author : toomuchtodo
Score : 105 points
Date : 2024-02-04 14:10 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.npr.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.npr.org)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Briggs
|
| https://archive.org/details/neverinangerport0000brig
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I'm with the Inuit and Jedi on this one: anger is pretty
| useless[0], and if you must[1] take revenge, that's best served
| cold.
|
| Sometimes I wonder if the typical Hollywood W-plot, in which the
| hero's best friend/significant relation is shown partying/getting
| the girl/otherwise living well at the top of the middle [?] then
| killed by the villain at the bottom of the right [?], after which
| the hero gets angry and wins the day, has been deliberately
| chosen to teach the proles exactly the wrong lesson, but then I
| remember to never ascribe to malice that which is adequately
| explained by stupidity.
|
| Speaking of storytelling, isn't a corollary of _The Iliad_ that
| if Achilles had not been --or at least not stayed-- angry, a few
| dozen ships worth of Achaeans would not have died (as described
| by Homer with lines worthy of 1975 's _Rollerball_ ) in gruesome
| ways?
|
| [0] is it useful for creatures that only have a limbic system?
| not only do we have a neocortex, but it's much more useful in
| these cases
|
| [1] often simply continuing to live well oneself is far better
| than any revenge
| sublinear wrote:
| The problem is that there's about equal amounts of malice as
| stupidity in the world, so you never really know why. Assuming
| stupidity by default doesn't always make you feel better and
| may still lead to an emotional reaction you don't want to have.
|
| The better solution is to not care why, and do what ya gotta
| do. Usually that's creating distance from the source of
| problems and you and your work.
| adriand wrote:
| Anger is not at all useless, it is a powerful and extremely
| useful emotion. When we witness injustice, when our loved ones
| are threatened or harmed, when someone treats us with contempt
| or disrespect, anger is our signal that we must take action,
| and it gives us the energy and courage to do what must be done.
|
| Understanding your anger and not letting it control your
| behaviour (ie not giving in to blind rage), is important. But
| there are no useless emotions, and of all the "negative"
| emotions, anger is among the most useful and important.
| foofie wrote:
| > (...) and it gives us the energy and courage to do what
| must be done.
|
| I don't think that's true. Anger, by definition, is a
| primal/emotional response that leads people to act abruptly
| without any semblance of reflection on the potential impact
| of their actions.
|
| The expressions "acted in anger" does not mean "acted with
| courage to do what needed to be done". It actually means
| someone screwed up badly without thinking things through.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| Anger does literally give a person energy and what can be
| labelled "courage" beyond their norm. That it is still up
| to the human being with a fully functional brain to figure
| out whether or not to use that energy (and, if yes, what
| exactly to do with it) doesn't change that fact.
| foofie wrote:
| > Anger does literally give a person energy and what can
| be labelled "courage" beyond their norm.
|
| Getting angry is renowned for leading people to do very
| stupid things that they would otherwise never do, because
| even themselves are fully aware it's stuff only an idiot
| would do.
|
| > That it is still up to the human being with a fully
| functional brain to figure out whether or not to use that
| energy (and, if yes, what exactly to do with it) doesn't
| change that fact.
|
| The original claim was "do what needs to be done" and now
| you backtracked to claim that instead the idiot who gets
| angry needs to control himself to not do stupid stuff
| that angry people do. What point do you think you're
| making?
| rawgabbit wrote:
| You are describing moral outrage. The other poster is talking
| about what academics associate with the fight or flight
| instinct.
|
| I agree with the other poster anger and other extreme
| emotions are usually negatively correlated with long term
| success. Extreme emotions engages our primal brain which
| prevents our more advanced brain from engaging.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| > You are describing moral outrage.
|
| That's simply a fancy label for a particular kind of anger,
| as one might be able to tell from the literal definition of
| outrage: an extremely strong reaction of anger, shock, or
| indignation.
|
| In my opinion there are few things quite as pathetic as
| people who twist themselves into pretzels to avoid
| acknowledging their emotions for what they are. Certain
| emotions are "bad" (anger, jealousy, etc), and so instead
| of _addressing_ it when they feel those things, they just
| convince themselves that they aren 't actually feeling them
| at all and that their reactions are driven by some higher
| logic or nobler emotion - all while still inflicting their
| emotional fallout on those around them.
| deebosong wrote:
| I side with this school of thought.
|
| Just call the emotions what they are, accept them in the
| form of not dressing them up and putting some spin on
| them to make people feel better about themselves (and
| ultimately dance around the actual emotion, via forms of
| denial, bypassing, etc.). And once you accept them for
| the simple, unadorned, and sometimes unflattering things
| that they are, you can then process them, and decide via
| understanding the root causes, contexts, and triggers, to
| then map out decision trees for how to respond to those
| feelings and emotions as the best course of action.
|
| And like you mentioned, if you don't address the actual
| emotions and try to pretty them up, you're gonna leak out
| the actual emotions sideways, and cause unnecessary
| strain to those around you, and ultimately place your
| burden of being responsible for your emotions on others,
| and most likely throw up a big stink (in the form of
| projection, more denial, more bypassing, etc.).
|
| Emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and
| responsibility are very difficult but necessary things,
| and they often times are unflattering. But like also many
| other things, there's no shortcuts to learning how to
| manage and deal with them in real situations with real
| stakes.
| rawgabbit wrote:
| Hmm. I would argue addressing the root cause of our
| emotions requires the use of a more precise clinical
| analysis. Which is the opposite of extreme emotion.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > there are few things quite as pathetic
|
| I very much agree with your overall point. But it's
| literally the opposite of pathetic to elide one's own
| pathos. I'm actually a bit sad that such as useful word
| as "pathetic" was _literally_ reversed in meaning to
| become a disparaging epithet.
|
| All personality types have their own blindspots.
| filleduchaos wrote:
| > But it's literally the opposite of pathetic to elide
| one's own pathos
|
| ...a rather important part of the overall point is
| precisely that the people in question are not elid[ing
| their] own pathos.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| Saying it's not really anger is at least the attempt to
| not consider it. But yes, _verbal_ elidation is probably
| more correct.
| NemoNobody wrote:
| "Engages our primal brain ... prevents our more advanced
| brain engaging"
|
| That's not how that works.
|
| Moral outrage is when I'm pissed off at someone else bc
| they don't fit my preconceived idea of how people ought to
| live or behave - it's not real anger, especially not in
| 2024.
|
| Being pissed off bc of injustice to my family - that is for
| sure actual anger.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > anger and other extreme emotions are usually negatively
| correlated with long term success.
|
| But historically when they did not result in negative long
| term success, they paid off big time.
|
| Anger is not an extreme emotion. It's used all of the time
| to good purpose. You're thinking about rage. If the "other
| poster" failed to make this distinction then it's really
| important to make it now so that we don't start
| strawmanning or ad homineming based on a misunderstanding.
|
| Personally Joy has been an extreme emotion that has done me
| bad. As when I experience Joy I start to stop paying
| attention. On one occasion I suffered a broken bone because
| of it.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _Anger is not at all useless, it is a powerful and
| extremely useful emotion._
|
| A while ago I had a loved one both harmed and threatened.
|
| I called my insurance, who gave me a lawyer, who got the
| facts from my loved one and combined them with the law,
| giving the case to a judge, who gave us a court order which
| allowed us to both (a) remedy the harm, and (b) get law
| enforcement backup. For this outcome, very little energy, and
| no courage (at least on our parts), was required.
|
| How would anger --or even moral outrage-- have improved the
| situation?
| adriand wrote:
| It sounds to me like you were driven more by other emotions
| -- perhaps feelings of care, concern or worry. That doesn't
| prove that anger is useless, simply that in that situation,
| it wasn't the primary emotion you were experiencing or that
| drove your behaviour.
|
| But let's suppose that the same situation unfolded, except
| you were Black, and the treatment you received by the legal
| system was rude and dismissive in ways that you were
| familiar with, having experienced racism many times before.
| In that situation you might experience much more anger, and
| you might rely on that anger to give you the courage and
| energy to deal with the injustice you were experiencing.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > How would anger --or even moral outrage-- have improved
| the situation?
|
| If at any point the chain of actions had broken down, anger
| would have granted the motivation to pursue through the
| roadblock.
|
| You do understand that this very system implicitly
| disadvantages those who do not have such straightforward
| access to it, right?
| lukan wrote:
| Anger is useful in a way, that it gives energy and overcomes
| paralyzing fear. When you are in a survival fight with no way
| to escape, anger can make all the difference - otherwise we
| would not have evolved it. But sure, it is way way better, to
| not be in a situation where anger is the last resort - and in
| all normal (social) situations, anger is dangerous. The idea is
| is to be in control of your body - and not your emotions
| controlling you.
|
| So I am with the Inuit with this approach:
|
| "When they're little, it doesn't help to raise your voice," she
| says. "It will just make your own heart rate go up."
|
| When you meet anger with anger, the fire only goes stronger.
|
| Children mainly learn by observing the elders. If they resolve
| their conflicts with anger - they will mimic it. If they see
| the elders being calm, that is what they will learn. And if
| they learn, that they will get what they want, if they throw a
| tantrum - then this is what they will do more in the future.
| Consequence is key here.
|
| But I am very sceptical about the bad stories. They don't help
| I think.
|
| What helps is channeling the anger with martial arts for
| example. There you can learn to feel the anger raising, after
| you get a hit - but not become blinded by it. You stay cool.
| And in control.
|
| edit: what works best when my children have their heads hot -
| literally cooling them with a bit of water
| svat wrote:
| In Sanskrit literature, a term often used when describing
| heroes like Rama and Arjuna is _jitakrodha_ , "one who has
| conquered his anger". The idea is for you to be in control of
| your anger, rather than for anger to control you. Rather than
| anger arising in response to external circumstances and causing
| you to be carried away and doing things you may regret later,
| instead anger should be a tool, something you invoke or bring
| on, when you consciously decide that you need to do battle (or
| something requiring that energy) -- like fire (something anger
| is frequently compared to), it is dangerous and destructive but
| a useful tool when one employs it deliberately.
| bitwize wrote:
| "That's my secret, Cap. I'm _always_ angry. "
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| The Iliad is the greatest LGBT love story of all time and I
| will die on that hill -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Achilles_and_Patroclus
|
| If you read the Iliad as a man losing his childhood lover,
| everything makes sense. Many in the classical greek period took
| this interpretation.
| tremon wrote:
| Painting the Iliad as a modern-day LGBT story is missing the
| forest for the trees. It encompasses so much more than the
| single-minded focus on physical attraction of today allows
| for: kinship, loyalty, adoration, piety, and veneration were
| all expressions of love to the ancient Greeks, and most of
| them existed without any physical component.
| NemoNobody wrote:
| This is oddly topical considering how that Alexander
| docudrama just stirred this pot with Alexander and
| Haphaestion.
|
| I haven't seen it but I read an article where the reviewer
| states something like "we've got to the point it's all
| right for 2 guys just to make out in a series made for the
| masses" he said something like he was pleased to realize
| that.
|
| Your comment feels like you are seeing the forest but
| missing the trees. Yes, Greek masculinity seems better than
| modern masculinity, apparently they were far more
| comfortable conveying and displaying the forms of affection
| you identified, hence the universal acceptance of their
| deep friendship.
|
| OP means they were actually f*cking tho and that does
| change motivation for the plot and subsequent events of the
| story considerably - perhaps even more adequately
| explaining the behavior and actions of Achilles than the
| traditional "best bro" interpretation.
|
| That was the specific tree in the forest OP was referring
| to
| Baader-Meinhof wrote:
| "At times it is only the angry who are in a position to
| apprehend the magnitude of some injustice. For they are the
| ones willing to sacrifice all their other concerns and
| interests so as to attend, with an almost divine focus, to some
| tear in the moral fabric. When I am really angry, it is not
| even clear to me that I _can_ calm down--the eyes of the heart
| do not have eyelids--and the person making that request strikes
| me, to adapt a locution of Socrates', as trying to banish me
| from my property, the truth. They are calling me "irrational,"
| but they seem not to see that there are _reasons to be angry_.
| "
|
| Agnes Callard, https://thepointmag.com/examined-life/anger-
| management-agnes...
| paulpauper wrote:
| Although I am not a violent person, I think some people only
| respond to violence. They cannot be reasoned with.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Non violence is made effective by the credible threat of a
| violent alternative
| olddustytrail wrote:
| Those people are best dealt with by calm force. Or
| controlled aggression if that suits you better. Random
| violence is just stupid and wrong.
| jWhick wrote:
| I always think twice about my revenge and definitely serve it
| cold. However thinking about it, Inuit are some of the coolest
| cultures out the here, right next to Japanese. Their commitment
| to stay cold-headed and be hard working is something to we
| should all aspire to achieve.
| mydogcanpurr wrote:
| Every day I become more convinced that Hanlon's razor is an
| example of malice.
| op00to wrote:
| I'm not sure lying to your kids about sea monsters to the point
| that your children are so petrified of the water they don't go
| near it is quite as benign as they believe.
| mantas wrote:
| Looks like adults ain't scared of the ocean too much to fish.
|
| Disciplining in harsh ways ain't without downsides. Nor not
| disciplining at all. Pick your preferred poison?
| op00to wrote:
| I think the key to their parenting success is not "lie to
| your kids about the ocean" but "don't yell at your kids".
| mantas wrote:
| The question is can one work without the other? Cherry
| picking work only in GIT.
| gjsman-1000 wrote:
| Also, unaddressed: when they get old enough to realize the
| story is fake, are they more likely to do something stupid
| then, because they don't understand the actual reasoning?
| sublinear wrote:
| Yeah that's exactly the problem with the boogeyman. They
| inevitably enter a rebellious phase that could be mostly
| avoided if you maintained trust and communication.
|
| Easier said than done, but you need to keep things simple and
| direct. To be blunt about it, most parents aren't mentally
| mature enough to have kids.
| rayiner wrote:
| > They inevitably enter a rebellious phase
|
| Adolescents have a biological inclination to distance
| themselves from their parents. But in cultures that
| properly isolate and ostracize non-conformists and trouble
| makers, you don't necessarily have a "rebellious" phase.
| (Some undoubtedly do, most don't.)
| Tao3300 wrote:
| If a "rebellious phase" in an Inuit population would
| entail falling into frigid water and dying, one angry
| teen per generation that falls in is probably enough to
| keep the rest out, if it's not cleared from the gene pool
| altogether. The latter might be bad armchair evolutionary
| psychology, but we're talking about a small population
| that's been in an extreme environment for a pretty long
| time.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > They inevitably enter a rebellious phase
|
| This is not a feature of most cultures, or at least they
| don't remark on it.
|
| If I were to guess, it is caused by our practice of sending
| kids to school.
| lupire wrote:
| It's well documented across the order Mammalia, not just
| humans.
| serf wrote:
| to be fair to the concept, it's a pretty benign sea monster (as
| far as sea monsters go..)
|
| >Jaw says Inuit parents take a pre-emptive approach and tell
| kids a special story about what's inside the water. "It's the
| sea monster," Jaw says, with a giant pouch on its back just for
| little kids.
|
| >"If a child walks too close to the water, the monster will put
| you in his pouch, drag you down to the ocean and adopt you out
| to another family," Jaw says.
|
| i'd much rather encounter that monster than any of the sea-
| yokai.
| throwaway421967 wrote:
| I wonder why across different cultures there seems to be a
| monster with a bag. Is there one proto-story being evolving
| through cultures or do people find it too gruesome to say
| that children are eaten so they create independently.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| at what psychological development stage? (usually age)
| xattt wrote:
| The story of the monster is technically the truth. Being near
| the sea is dangerous and requires respect and understanding.
|
| There will be a transition period between realizing the story
| is fake, and the real reason why small people need to stay
| away from the water.
|
| However, this realization will be at a point when the kids
| are bigger and more co-ordinated to get away from a rogue
| wave/whatever danger.
|
| The other fact is that this legend is passed down from
| generation to generation, which is a sign that it's
| effective.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Being near the sea is dangerous and requires respect and
| understanding.
|
| Very much so. In the Pacific North West, it's sneaker
| waves. I got caught by one of those with my 9 or 10 year
| old at the time step daughter. We were walking along a
| rocky outcrop several feet above the wave line, and then
| there's just this ... surge. I found the surest footing I
| could, she jumped up and clung on to me, and I put one arm
| around her, and the other locked on to a rock so hard it
| made my fingers bleed. The water kept coming up, and up,
| and up, eventually slowing at my belt line.
|
| That... was terrifying.
|
| And then you have the Artic Circle. Maybe no sneaker waves,
| but the water temperature is around 28-29F. Immerse in
| that, and you're dealing with hypothermia very quickly,
| especially as a toddler, young child.
| makeitshine wrote:
| Do many people, when older, get upset about the lies their
| parents told them about Santa, The Easter Bunny and such?
|
| I'm skeptical these sorts of childhood lies cause any issues.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| It certainly gives you more ammunition as a teen to distrust
| and venture the things your parents also taught you or
| implied were dangerous. It also teaches your children to
| believe foolish and questionable speech+conduct on the part
| of authority figures which has creates many other problems.
|
| Why is it necessary? Why do you need to lie to your children?
| Teaching them that lying is "fun" is absurd, so many problems
| are rooted in tradition and "because I said so" or belief in
| mythical good and bad guys and boogiemen.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > Why is it necessary? Why do you need to lie to your
| children?
|
| I prefer to be straight with my young kids when possible,
| but even I have to admit that mythical type stories carry a
| lot more staying power with young kids than a stern warning
| about real danger from their parents.
|
| The context we have as adults about the consequences of
| things like death are not fully developed in young
| children. However, they pick up on stories and remember
| details of stories very clearly.
|
| Moving important lessons into the context of stories makes
| them resonate more with young children. It's as simple as
| that. You can also give them the real-world explanation at
| the same time, but the story version will almost always
| have better staying power in a child's mind.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| I think there's a difference also between telling a story
| with lessons embedded and straight-up lying and saying
| Santa/God is watching and you have him on speed-dial.
| That is absolutely pathetic and ridiculous and I'll admit
| it continues to influence my perception of this
| discussion
| FireBeyond wrote:
| I agree with you, it's one thing to be lying for
| 'fanciful' things - "Santa is bringing you presents"
| versus "We're your family and love you very much and want
| to give you things", the Easter bunny, etc, versus "We're
| in the Artic Circle. If you fall and trip in this water,
| it means hypothermia, near drowning, or death."
|
| As you say, children struggle with the concept of death,
| as any parent who has had to explain the death of a pet
| to a young child will attest. Depending on age, no matter
| how you attempt to describe, there's always that "but
| they're coming back, right?"
| pyuser583 wrote:
| My first child called cemeteries "zombie farms."
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| > It certainly gives you more ammunition as a teen to
| distrust and venture the things your parents also taught
| you or implied were dangerous.
|
| So a good thing then?
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Not really, they already pick that up organically from
| their peers at that age, I maintain that it makes you
| less credible as a parent/guide to them. If you help them
| with the easy questions, they're more liky to seek you
| out for the hard ones.
|
| Also, long before that, you've cultivated a tradition of
| believing ridiculous nonsense for which there's no easy
| cure or gurantee it can be remedied before it ends up
| creating even bigger problems
| graemep wrote:
| I do not know, but I think such lies are best avoided.
|
| They are also not scary lies.
| rayiner wrote:
| It's almost as children are irrational creatures without fully
| developed brains and can't handle the truth.
| foofie wrote:
| I wouldn't say irrational. They are inexperienced. They don't
| know the risks, and they don't know what they are risking
| with some kind of behavior.
|
| If you place someone who never set foot outside of a major
| urban center and place them in a forest, they will do a lot
| of stupid things that can get them killed. If you take
| someone who always lived in a temperate climate and place
| them in either subzero temperatures then they won't even know
| what to wear without risking at least frostbite. If you place
| them in a hot environment they won't even know they are
| risking their life with heatstroke or dehydration.
| jancsika wrote:
| This being HN, it's worth noting explicitly:
|
| All humans, including children, live with irrational
| tendencies which they never become _fully_ aware of, much
| less fully control.
|
| Moreover, our hardware/software is probably many orders of
| magnitude better at identifying irrational patterns in
| others vs. ourselves.
|
| Moreover moreover, we've all seen how nearly anyone's
| attempt to change those patterns in themselves happens at a
| glacial pace measured in decades or-- if they're lucky--
| years.
|
| So you'd better carry around a queue of recent cases where
| your own irrational tendencies caused you to make sizable
| errors in judgment. Or some kind of static analysis tools
| that can constantly remind you of this truism.
|
| Otherwise, this being HN, you're going to get roped in to a
| discussion where the implication is that adult humans can
| avoid irrational tendencies by spending a few minutes
| reasoning our way out of them from first principles. (Well,
| unless the implication in the comment you're responding to
| is that adults should also be told and accept lies as a
| means to some end.)
|
| Edit: clarification
| rayiner wrote:
| > I wouldn't say irrational. They are inexperienced. They
| don't know the risks, and they don't know what they are
| risking with some kind of behavior.
|
| "Inexperienced" is the wrong word. That suggests that what
| they lack is experiential knowledge. That's incorrect.
| Instead, children and adolescents have lower capacity for
| acting rationally even based on the same knowledge, because
| the frontal cortex isn't fully developed until age 25: http
| s://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?Con...
|
| Mixing up those two things leads you to the erroneous view
| that you can facilitate young people making good decisions
| by presenting them information to analyze and process
| rationally. They have lesser capacity to do that. That's
| why every society has various approaches to regulating the
| behavior of young people, such as stories about sea
| monsters.
| pharrington wrote:
| That link is strangely misleading for a medical
| authority. Yes, the _prefrontal_ cortex is underdeveloped
| in youth, but saying its responsible for _rational_
| decision making is wrong - our current knowledge is that
| it handles long-term decision making and impulse
| regulation. While children generally are fundamentally
| _more impulsive_ than adults, rationality and impulsivity
| aren 't inversely related. For example, dogmatic thinking
| is a very common form of non-impulsive, attentive, yet
| irrational decision making.
|
| And yes, children obviously are inexperienced. It takes
| ALOT of sensory data to achieve general intelligence, and
| gathering that data (or what the kids these days call
| "touching grass") simply takes alot of time.
| foofie wrote:
| > "Inexperienced" is the wrong word. That suggests that
| what they lack is experiential knowledge. That's
| incorrect.
|
| For your hypothesis even to begin to hold water, first
| you would have to prove that babies are fully aware of
| facts such diving in freezing water can cause sudden
| death, drowning, or hypothermia. Only then would you be
| in a position to even start claiming that they are not
| ignorant and just have poor judgement.
| kdmccormick wrote:
| Your point was my initial reaction, too. But hey, these people
| have been raising kids to survive in the freezing cold for
| hundreds of years, who am I to say they're wrong?
|
| I bet there is a certain delicacy to telling the stories as
| _allegories_ so that you can transition them from fantasy to
| rationality as the kid grows.
|
| For example, the "sea monster that swallows you and brings you
| to another family" sounds like an allegory for "the water will
| drown you and bring you to the afterlife / death". If you
| respect your kid's intellect, I bet that you can explain that
| connection to them once they're getting too old to believe
| myths, while still holding onto the emotional connection.
| foofie wrote:
| The options on the table is a) be petrified of the water, or b)
| risk falling into ice cold water, and option a) is the one that
| actually keeps your children alive.
|
| I wonder if storytelling is effective due to an evolutionary
| pressure that leads kids who don't learn from storytelling to
| succumb to the dangers warned against by children's stories. I
| mean, there's a recurring theme in children's stories which is
| the character who didn't listened is also the character who
| falls victim and serves as a cautionary tale.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| Why couldn't you just literally (in a controlled setting)
| introduce them directly to the danger by mediating and
| showing them thru direct experience? Take your kid to work
| and let them see what they're up against
| iteria wrote:
| I see you've never had a young child. What you're talking
| about is something that doesn't work with children under 3.
| And tbose children are very mobile, boundary test and don't
| really understand death.
|
| My 1 year butt checked a fireplace and got a 3rd degree
| burn. She understood what hot was. That heat could hurt
| her. Still burnt her butt when I wasn't looking and the
| worst part was the urgent care told me it was a common
| occurrence. I believe them because they guess exactly how
| it had happened.
|
| My 2 year old nearly drowned. It was only a fence that
| stopped her from jumping into a pool when I wasn't looking.
| I found her right outside it after desperately wondering
| where she had gone. She'd been in a pool plenty of times
| and even knew she could sink. Didn't matter.
|
| I can have frank discussions with my nearly 5 year old, but
| that was really recent. Even when she was just 4 just
| explaning and exposure wasn't alaays effective. It's easier
| to just lie for their safety.
|
| And hell it must work because I still remember the stories
| my dad told me about the monster called Undertow that would
| carry you out to sea. I of course know it's a real thing,
| but I think it's telling I think of the story before the
| factual information and I heard the story over 25 years
| ago.
| op00to wrote:
| Yes, you watch children that young closely. You do not
| tell them there are monsters in the water/fireplace/etc
| and hope for the best.
| foofie wrote:
| > I see you've never had a young child.
|
| Thank you for pointing out a series of facts that are
| only obvious to those who have direct or indirect contact
| with children.
|
| It boggles the mind how some naive people believe you can
| have nuanced conversations enumerating risks and
| tradeoffs with kids who are just starting to count to 10,
| and refuse things like changing a diaper. Some kids don't
| even grasp the connection between diaper rashes and not
| changing diapers when they are soiled, even when
| experiencing that multiple times.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| On the contrary, I was forced to raise two that were
| constantly indulged and lied to (and despite my
| protestations was required to cave constantly) to humor
| them and it made them a nightmare to deal with while also
| severely hampering their development.
|
| Then it became a constant danger about them finding out
| the truth which we would be brutally punished if that
| happened because the child would throw a fit due to the
| abrupt change in their perception/reality and that the
| tried+true old control mechanism would be lost creating
| two stupid unnecessary new problems.
|
| Lying lets others control you and prevents you from
| freely making the most sensible or appropriate decision.
| It gives a child control over you and handicaps your
| abillity to transact with them in a way that is
| productive and authentic.
|
| I'm not gonna say your parent was awful for trying to
| protect you, I'm simply saying its trades convenience and
| expediency at the cost of truly dealing with issues and
| conflicts (assuming you have dealt with the other aspects
| like child-proofing as best is possible).
| foofie wrote:
| > On the contrary, I was forced to raise two that were
| constantly indulged and lied to (and despite my
| protestations was required to cave constantly) to humor
| them and it made them a nightmare to deal with while also
| severely hampering their development.
|
| I fail to see how your personal anecdote refutes the
| facts pointed out by the OP. The only way you could
| possibly refute OP's point would be by proving that you
| can hold nuanced discussions between abstract and
| hypothetical risks and their tradeoffs with children who
| barely have any ability to express themselves.
| rayiner wrote:
| Kids and adolescents have limited capacity to reason about
| hypotheticals and cause and effect. That capacity doesn't
| develop until later. What they do have is an innate fear of
| dangerous creatures. These stories simply meet kids where
| their faculties are.
| lukeplato wrote:
| The story distinctly says the sea monster uses a pouch for
| small kids, so they wouldn't have to fear it as they get older
| if that part is explained
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| There's a good children's book about Eskimo undersea child-
| snatching monsters:
| https://www.annickpress.com/Books/A/A-Promise-Is-a-Promise
|
| They don't use bags, though it's always possible that that's
| an adaptation of the original story. It seems more likely
| that there is cultural variation in traditional stories.
|
| There is no need to make it impossible for a monster to
| target adults. You can just say that they target children.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qallupilluit
| Avicebron wrote:
| Depending on the age/location, this is most likely life or
| death (e.g. a toddler falling into freezing cold water),
| probably growing to an age where the fear can be understood
| more rationally is a better outcome than doing nothing losing a
| child.
| lupire wrote:
| It worked for Christof (Truman Show), and for Morty Smith and
| his child.
| svat wrote:
| From the article itself:
|
| > _At first, these stories seemed to me a bit too scary for
| little children. And my knee-jerk reaction was to dismiss them.
| But my opinion flipped 180 degrees after I watched my own
| daughter 's response to similar tales -- and after I learned
| more about humanity's intricate relationship with
| storytelling._
|
| > _Oral storytelling is what 's known as a human universal. For
| tens of thousands of years, it has been a key way that parents
| teach children about values and how to behave._
|
| Also, the Inuit parents don't want their little children going
| near the water. That the ocean is dangerous and to be avoided
| is the truth. The story about the sea monster is a way of
| communicating this truth in terms that the little children can
| understand.
|
| (Calling this "lying" is like calling it lying to teach
| classical mechanics: to a first approximation Newton's laws of
| motion are true; they can be refined later. Similarly, though
| we can later refine the sea monster to say that it takes the
| form of waves and currents and depths and drowning and all
| that, IMO to a first approximation there _is_ a sea monster,
| and in primal moments it can be useful to remember that.)
| Ekaros wrote:
| So it is wrong to warn kids about strangers with vans offering
| candy or entertainment?
| sublinear wrote:
| This seems particularly useful to know about especially as
| organizational change across so many workplaces has created
| tension.
|
| The only part I wonder about is the "playful" storytelling. There
| are definitely better ways to communicate danger to a child than
| the boogeyman. It will take a lot more effort than a silly story,
| but you're trying to build up their mind after all.
| trabant00 wrote:
| Typical story about some exotic knowledge or practice that is a
| shortcut westerners could take to solve otherwise complex
| problem.
|
| Who says anger is always wrong? Or that not exposing children to
| it is better? Screaming at somebody can be a valid excalation in
| a conflict, signaling serious aggression and that worse is to
| come if the offending party does not cease.
|
| Yelling can be stupid and worse than useless. People can lose
| their temper too often or when they do not have a chence to win
| an escalated conflict. But an extreme does not justify the other
| (never doing it).
|
| Also kids are kids. Sometimes they will not accept any calm
| argumentation no matter what. And shocking them into submission
| with verbal aggression will. Again, this can be over used by some
| parents.
|
| There are no shortcuts and no recipes. Never doing something or
| always doing some other thing does not work.
| suriyaganesh wrote:
| Although, this comment is a little extreme. There is something
| to be said about, developing the child for the environment
| they're going to exist in. In an Inuit Community where everyone
| is cool headed, it's the right thing to be a cool headed
| person. But, the average world is not the same. There are more
| hot headed people than hot headed ones out there, and managing
| them requires one to speak their language.
| ykonstant wrote:
| I misread the title, and thought the answer would be something
| like "with our FREE(r) Anger Management System(tm) that you can
| try* TODAY(c) from the comfort of your home!"
| da768 wrote:
| Previous threads
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19396563
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23927773
| dang wrote:
| Thanks! Macroexpanded:
|
| _How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger (2019)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28567973 - Sept 2021 (33
| comments)
|
| _How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger (2019)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23927773 - July 2020 (134
| comments)
|
| _How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19396563 - March 2019 (251
| comments)
|
| I vaguely recall other related threads on this if anyone can
| find them!
| rolph wrote:
| a reasonable outlook on reality.
|
| anger is outward frustration in response to something not
| yielding to your will.
|
| before you can control, your arrows, or your rifle, or the small
| parts of your world, you have to control yourself, and know your
| place. you can be smarter than a hatchet, or a wet campfire
| kleton wrote:
| Could they also have genetic differences in their temperament
| that makes them slower to anger naturally?
| greesil wrote:
| Looks like they've got ADHD and ODD like the rest of us.
| https://www.jaacap.org/article/S0890-8567(22)00189-7/fulltex...
| svat wrote:
| A caption in the article says _"A lot has changed in the Arctic
| since the Canadian government forced Inuit families to settle in
| towns. But the community is trying to preserve traditional
| parenting practices."_ (and earlier the article says _"Elders I
| spoke with say intense colonization over the past century is
| damaging these traditions."_ ) -- what is this referring to? What
| did the Canadian government do?
| shagie wrote:
| > What did the Canadian government do?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Reconciliation_Commi...
|
| > In June 2015, the TRC released an executive summary of its
| findings along with 94 "calls to action" regarding
| reconciliation between Canadians and Indigenous Peoples. The
| commission officially concluded in December 2015 with the
| publication of a multi-volume final report that concluded the
| school system amounted to cultural genocide. The National
| Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, which opened at the
| University of Manitoba in November 2015, is an archival
| repository home to the research, documents, and testimony
| collected during the course of the TRC's operation.
|
| https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1450124405592/1529106060...
|
| ---
|
| It is a LONG, deep, and dark rabbit hole to dig through those
| documents that takes you through places such as undocumented
| graveyards behind schools.
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/sto-lo-natio...
|
| Specifically regarding the Inuit resettlement -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Arctic_relocation
| gorwell wrote:
| The Truth and Reconciliation Commission is the opposite as
| advertised. It's a serious mistake to take the self
| proclaimed Ministry of Truth at face value.
| shagie wrote:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/25/world/canada/canada-
| schoo...
|
| And, in the end, the conclusion of the National Truth and
| Reconciliation Commission was unambiguous: "Children were
| abused, physically and sexually, and they died in the
| schools in numbers that would not have been tolerated in
| any school system anywhere in the country, or in the
| world."
|
| From the 1880s through the 1990s, the Canadian government
| forcibly removed at least 150,000 Indigenous children from
| their homes and sent them t o residential schools to
| assimilate them. Their languages and religious and cultural
| practices were banned, sometimes using violence. It was,
| the commission reported in 2015, a system of "cultural
| genocide."
|
| ---
|
| Should that _not_ be taken at face value?
| rohitb91 wrote:
| There's things that are left out that are important
|
| Many indigenous wanted their kids to go to these schools
|
| There was abuse in the school system everywhere and it
| seems like catholic schooling has been sexually abusive
| everywhere
|
| Rural canada was extremely poor
|
| Viruses like influenza ravaged everyone
|
| The media reporting on the matter makes it seem like
| everything bad of the past was exclusively done to
| indigenous when it was a combination of life sucking for
| everyone and then it being a bit worse to the indigenous
| on top of that. But painting it as this extreme injustice
| to indigenous is misleading IMO. To say nothing of the
| extreme grifting and people looking for payouts from the
| government that only make the lives of the indigenous
| worse.
| ulrashida wrote:
| It sounds like you should read the report.
|
| "Life sucking for everyone" is not equal to the
| government of the day targeting a racial group for the
| multiple negative policies that were enacted. What level
| of injustice do you ascribe to taking children away from
| families if not extreme?
| dubcanada wrote:
| I only know of 1 forced relocation the Quebec -> High Circle
| relocation after WW2. I don't believe that's what they are
| referring too. Unless they mean the standard first nation
| reservation rules. Which are not applicable for Inuit from what
| I understand.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| The government had multiple "relocation" ventures beyond the
| high arctic relocations and it's not much of a stretch to
| call it the standard policy from that period. HBC also did an
| experiment with the now-deserted town of Devon's harbour.
| Other examples include Nueltin lake and Banks Island.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Perplexity's answer to this:
|
| The Canadian government forced Inuit families to settle in
| towns primarily for administrative and political reasons. This
| policy, known as the High Arctic relocation, was implemented
| during the Cold War for sovereignty and security purposes, as
| well as to assert Canada's presence in the Arctic. The
| government believed that by relocating the Inuit, it could
| strengthen Canadian sovereignty in the North. However, this
| forced relocation had devastating consequences for the Inuit,
| leading to social, economic, and cultural disruptions. While
| the government has issued an apology and provided some
| compensation, the overall impact of the forced settlement on
| the Inuit community has been largely negative. The Inuit were
| separated from their traditional way of life, which had
| sustained them for centuries, and faced significant challenges
| in adapting to a more urban lifestyle. This has resulted in
| intergenerational trauma and loss of traditional knowledge and
| practices.
|
| The Canadian government has since recognized the inherent right
| of Inuit to self-determination and has been working with Inuit
| organizations to address the impacts of the forced relocations.
| Various land claims agreements have been signed, granting title
| to certain blocks of land to the Inuit. Additionally,
| initiatives such as the Inuit Child First Initiative have been
| introduced to support Inuit communities. However, the long-term
| effects of the forced settlement policy continue to be felt,
| and efforts to address its legacy are ongoing.
|
| In conclusion, while the forced settlement of Inuit families
| was driven by political and administrative motives, it has had
| detrimental effects on the Inuit community. The Canadian
| government has taken steps to acknowledge and address these
| impacts, but the overall outcome of the forced relocation
| policy has been largely negative for the Inuit. Ongoing efforts
| are being made to support Inuit self-determination and address
| the legacy of the forced relocations.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Arctic_relocation
| fhdkweig wrote:
| what didn't they do?
|
| Start with a search for the phrase "Killing the indian in the
| child". That is a deep dive into darkness.
|
| 1) Forceful re-adoptions where the government would take kids
| from Inuit parents and give them to white parents.
|
| 2) Residential schools where they would forcefully take a child
| and send them away from their parents and not allow them to
| speak their native language or even dress in their native
| clothes. Someone else mentioned the "graveyards behind
| schools".
| pmarreck wrote:
| A lot of this seems alien to me but I've also suffered from
| lifelong anger issues (perhaps also due to some corporal
| punishment I experienced) so it probably tracks... so I'm going
| to try these. I am especially sensitive to being struck
| physically. When my 2.6 year old son hits me, for example (the
| other night he literally tried to grab my eyeball out, out of the
| blue, fingernails and all), I must immediately walk away and let
| his mother know, otherwise I am in danger of reacting badly.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| One of my first memories is of "biting Mother."
|
| Her response was "bite this little bastard back."
|
| I've spent decades untangling our Love. RIP, Mom.
| pmarreck wrote:
| Same on all fronts. Mom died March 2020, a week before COVID
| lockdowns. The wake for her we had at our house was the last
| social engagement I experienced for at least a year.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| However, consider the environment, quite hostile, where being a
| part of the tribe is about as starkly life-or-death as it gets.
| Stay with the tribe in the deep of winter: you live. Get chucked
| out for a couple hours in the deep cold (and I mean ... COLD) and
| you're dead in hours.
|
| Yet southern populations of people always have reputations for
| being hotheaded, but northerners (stoic scandinavians) have the
| opposite.
|
| It could be this one trick you click, but it could also be
| rapacious evolutionary and social evolutionary pressure imposed
| by nature.
| throwawayyy9237 wrote:
| This is very interesting and I can see how it can produce good
| results.
|
| What I can't do is square this with my own observations of the
| current generation of parents. In my particular social and
| geographic circle, most parents tend to let the children do
| whatever they please. This almost produces "feral" children that
| can't even eat and sit properly (and I don't mean the Victorian
| Properly, I mean without dumping a full plate of food on their
| head or throwing cuttlery against the wall) or observe the basic
| rules of social interation.
|
| If the "throw me the pebble" was applied to these children they
| would just think it would be OK to throw pebbles at strangers on
| the street.
|
| What's the missing element in our society (honest question)?
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| I wonder how much of it is culture and how much are centuries of
| selection towards survival in a certain environment. It could be
| that these lessons don't work with other kids in the same way.
| oftenwrong wrote:
| text-only version of the article: https://text.npr.org/685533353
|
| One of the authors, Michaeleen Doucleff, also wrote a book called
| _Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About
| the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans_. It 's
| interesting, and has some useful points to think about while
| parenting. However, I felt that a lot of the concepts would be
| difficult to apply in the WEIRD (Western, Educated,
| Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) society I live in. The
| author acknowledges this, of course.
| User3456335 wrote:
| If this were a joke, the answer would be "Keep cool!"
| EdwardDiego wrote:
| I believe they were looking for the word "suppress".
| theropost wrote:
| Yes, lets celebrate their economic, cultural, and life
| expectencies. They have it all figured out.
| Erratic6576 wrote:
| One of my proudest parenting moments: my 9 yo was crying around
| noon, I was trying to comfort him and he slapped me in the face
| with anger. "Are you slapping me because you're hungry?" "Yeah"
| "You want a banana?" "Yeah"
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