How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger (2019)

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/03/13/685533353/a-playful-way-to-teach-kids-to-control-their-anger

by kevinconaway • 6 years ago

177 126 6 years ago

dwohnitmok5• 6 years ago

The article seems fairly problematic.

https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/b0so4h/how_...

EDIT: Well this is proving to be a pretty wild ride. As far as I can tell both this post and its replies (by TheAdamAndChe and ebg13) are getting voted down, which is very surprising to me (I would've expected either/or not both).

That leads me to believe there's something wrong with my link.

Does HN know something about my link that I don't?

TheAdamAndChe3• 6 years ago

No offense, but "problematic" is a weasel word[1]. Based on your link, a better way to describe it is inaccurate or misleading. The link describes how intuit used to spank their children in the past, and how the studies the post is based off of were poorly designed.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weasel%20word

ebg133• 6 years ago

"Problematic" is a kind word for cherry-picked, misinterpreted, hypergeneralized, and contrary to available evidence with a hefty dose of noble savage xenoromanticism thrown in.

tasogare2• 6 years ago

I’m always amazed at how English speakers took some loanwords from French, then derive their meanings up to the point they became offensive (examples: problematic, oriental). The issue is that for non-English native speakers those overloads are easy to miss (and usually absent from dictionaries), and a post can be made pretty trollish accidentally.

laretluval• 6 years ago

I think your downvotes are entirely because you used the word “problematic” which some people feel is often used to shut down debate.

A shame, because your link pretty convincingly shows that the article’s claims about the Inuit are simply false.

TheAdamAndChe3• 6 years ago

dwohnitmok in response to your edit, I agree this is the issue. Your link was fantastic and adds to the conversation.

rovolo2• 6 years ago

Any discussion of parenting and Native peoples needs to include the context of the Indian Residential Schools. The state (Canada and the US) would force Native children to attend boarding schools with restricted parental visitation rights (legally compulsory in Canada 1894-1948, and de-facto compulsory for the 20 years before and after). The schools would punish the children for 'acting Native' (wearing traditional clothing, not speaking english, etc). It was a program of forced cultural assimilation (sometimes called 'cultural genocide') which was supported by saying that Native parents were bad influences on their children.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Indian_residential_sc...

Any attempt to remove Native children from their parents needs to acknowledge the use of children by the government to attempt to wipe out Native culture. Around a quarter of Native children were removed from their homes in the US by child protective services and permanently placed in non-Native homes. This was such an issue that the Indian Child Welfare act requires that Native tribes and Native family have the first opportunity to claim custodianship over Native children removed from the home.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Child_Welfare_Act

So for the comment you link to, I have the following objections:

- Native people were raised in government schools (until 1970) which used corporal punishment regularly. They're criticizing parenting styles which the government taught parents as kids.

- Canada and the US have a long history of removing lots of kids from Native parents. Of course Native leaders are going to care about CPS rules

- The SSC guy is completely ignoring how shitty White Canadians have treated Native people when he compares abuse rates between Inuit and "Western" (White) populations. This reeks of a long history of calling Native people "savage".

dwohnitmok5• 6 years ago

Hmmmmm now we're getting somewhere if this is the heart of the objections.

However, this seems like it's covered by

Also, the Inuit have changed a lot recently as they get influenced by European culture (but NPR did their interview with Inuit this year, who talk as if they're describing the present).

Granted I'm sure you'd find this far too lenient in terms of phrasing, something more like "Traditional Inuit culture was both destroyed by what was effectively Western cultural and actual imperialism and retroactively viewed and criticized through a warped Western lens."

But the basic essence of that is still addressed by Scott's comment. It may not be the way things used to be, and it may not be the "fault" of the Inuits at all, nor may it even be the right perspective to view Inuit culture.

Nonetheless the empirical observations made in this article seem to be in direct opposition to multiple other sources of data we have. That seems bad. More specifically it suggests the article is suffering greatly from selection bias and its conclusions are therefore suspect.

war1025• 6 years ago

For anyone interested in Native American / Canadian issues, I can't recommend Kent Nerburn's "Neither Wolf nor Dog" series [1][2][3] highly enough.

The second and third books deal more directly with the boarding schools, but all three are fantastic in terms of giving a perspective that is usually left out when it comes to Native issues.

[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/72662.Neither_Wolf_Nor_D...

[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6532022-the-wolf-at-twil...

[3] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17707906-the-girl-who-sa...

dwohnitmok5• 6 years ago

If people find this link valuable can somebody please just rephrase this comment however it's meant to be phrased and repost it so that it doesn't getting buried due to my poor wording?

It's surreal to me to see a bunch of sibling comments higher up arguing over its conclusions when the article's premise is in serious question.

dang2• 6 years ago

Please don't go on about downvotes like that. It's tediously meta and breaks the site rules: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

dwohnitmok5• 6 years ago

My apologies, all the more so because this is something I dislike in comments myself.

I was genuinely surprised by this though in a way I haven't been by previous downvotes. "Everyone" so to speak were getting down votes and the only common factor I could find was the link itself, which as far as I could tell was entirely unproblematic unless it was referencing some studies which were widely acknowledged to be bad scholarship.

Regardless I'll take the humbling reminder to read the guidelines and my own comments more closely.

blueicecubes• 6 years ago

This was discussed a year ago at length: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19396563

trhway• 6 years ago

leading/teaching by example. Show, don't tell. I wonder though what selection pressure made for anger to be a non-beneficial trait in the Inuit society. In our typical society anger, while definitely not always, is a beneficial trait frequently and sufficiently enough to be practiced by many. It seems that in Inuit society anger is almost never a beneficial trait and thus is actively suppressed (so behavioral adaptation while curiously not fully selected out at biological level - probably the key here is "to control anger" in the sense of being in control, not eliminating completely, so that means an ability to deploy only when needed in a very controlled/measured/managed fashion. So may be by showing no anger while it is clearly supposed be there the Inuit parents teach not a "no anger" (which would be a lie as the other commenters pointed out), and instead they teach of how to be a master of your anger instead of a slave to it).

gameswithgo2• 6 years ago

Harsh enough environment that people who couldn't keep their cool probably left, or died, was my guess.

choeger• 6 years ago

So a large part is to lie? I don't know. I mean, yes, I get angry by my children, and I don't know any parent that does not. Probably I get angry too often too early. But I really try hard never to lie to my kids. I even show them that I am angry because I think that's part of the game. Kids need to learn that other people have emotions.

But telling stories about horrific creatures to avoid dangerous places? I don't know. I mean yes, I guess it works, but why not tell them the (horrific) truth?

sparker72678• 6 years ago

This isn't a lie in the way we'd typically talk about lies. It isn't meant to deceive. It's a myth.

As a child grows and discovers that there isn't really a monster in the sea, are they going to resent their parents when they understand the explanation?

I think that's the difference here.

darkerside2• 6 years ago

Reminds me of Luke and Obi Wan. What the parents are saying is true, from a certain point of view.

gameswithgo2• 6 years ago

Perhaps these kinds of magical ideas that we teach our kids makes them more susceptible to believing various religions/cults are real. That would be a downside.

sekai• 6 years ago

You mean like how we lie about Santa Claus?

hutzlibu3• 6 years ago

Maybe it is wrong, too?

kweinber• 6 years ago

No. . .its more like stories about Hell.

cosinetau• 6 years ago

I suppose you'd count the exclamation of pain after strike that a parent asked their child make against the parent as a lie, too.

But, then I would know for sure you have missed the point.

darkerside2• 6 years ago

It's just reverse Santa Claus.

Besides, I think of education as a series of increasingly small lies anyway. If you can get the kids to model correct behavior, you're just helping them visualize success. Is it a self delusion to visualize success for yourself? Maybe, but so what?

X6S1x6Okd1st• 6 years ago

Humans are really bad at estimating certain kinds of dangers.

Invisible and slow acting dangers are consistently under-estimated, immediate & physical dangers are recognized easily.

Teaching a very young kid that even if they are warm right now (especially inside, before going outside, or in the sun) that they still need to keep their hat on because they might lose it or not put it on correctly when it becomes cold and cold can kill.

Cold is invisible, it's not immediate. Replacing it with a captivating story about a mythical monster that will come and get you should serve to stay in their mind better & they might even enjoy hearing about it.

JohnTHaller• 6 years ago

Invisible and slow acting dangers are consistently under-estimated, immediate & physical dangers are recognized easily.

See: 2020

Humdeee• 6 years ago

That's what I took away as well. At some point all these stories have to be retracted and the truth told. It was a big deal for us as kids about Santa, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, etc. What if there were hundreds more though? What if the parent only corrected a portion of these? What if the situation never arose again where the child would identify the lie and instead propagate it to offspring?

Perhaps we've just solved how religions start... /s

yaktubi• 6 years ago

We used to tell children the truth. Just read the old fairy tales—Pinocchio, Little Red Riding Hood, etc.

mnm1• 6 years ago

So you told your kids Santa Claus doesn't exist at the first possible opportunity? There are many positive reasons to lie.

raincom3• 6 years ago

In the Western culture, lying is primarily connected to deception. In cultures where Semitic religions have not influenced, lying and deception are not same: one can lie, without intending to deceive. That's how one has to look at.

One can lie for multiple reasons. For instance, to avoid conflict; or because one is not in a mood. Deception is one among many reasons.

Why the western culture focuses so much on the unity between lying/falsehood and deception? This has to do with the secularization of Christianity: Christian ideas becoming less Christian, more 'universal'. Satan, falsity, lying, deception--all form the unity in Christianity; in secular thinking, Satan is pushed out, but the unity between lying, falsehood and deception is present. This unity does not exist for Inuits or Chinese or even east Indians. It is part of child rearing practices in China and in India, to teach kids to lie.

dragonwriter5• 6 years ago

One can lie for multiple reasons. For instance, to avoid conflict; or because one is not in a mood. Deception is one among many reasons.

In all of those cases deception is the purpose of lying, the other purposes described aren't alternatives to deception, they are the purposes for which one seeks to deceive.

It's true that focussing on this has a nexus with Christian moral theory and it's influence on secular morality, since Christian moral theory distinguishes between bad ends sought deliberately as intermediate means to permissible ends and bad ends which are incidental to acts seeking permissible ends.

wil421• 6 years ago

That’s untrue. Kids in western cultures are taught to lie. It’s white lies, for example your mom baked your a cake and it didn’t taste good. Parents still say you need to say it was good no matter what.

A white lie is told to “avoid “conflict” as you stated above.

yters• 6 years ago

I remember in high school learning electrons were balls. Then, later I learn they are actually fields. Was I lied to?

agustif• 6 years ago

Yes, but only in an educative and reductionist way, in order to help your brain being able to grasp an idea, by introducing a simplified model of it before jumping into the details...

james_s_tayler2• 6 years ago

It's a phenomenon known as a "lie to children". Each level of academia produces a wrong but convenient model which is then subsequently replaced with a slightly less and slightly less convenient model.

UniverseHacker• 6 years ago

This isn't a lie- it's mythology. The information is stored in the emotion and values presented in the story, not the literal details.

Most native american cultures have a complex mythology that explains the worldview, values, and philosophy of the culture. This is how the culture is transmitted, and even young children in these societies are used to mythology, and understand how to use it without interpreting it as a simple literal explanation of 'fact.'

The 'literal truth' doesn't work in place of mythology, it is hard to remember and interest kids with unless they've experienced it directly... unlike mythology, it fails to serve as a stable and effective way of transmitting cultural values over long time spans. The emotional content is critical for memorization, and attention... and also serves as a sort of 'checksum' where erroneous changes to the story generally reduce the emotional content, thereby causing the original 'correct' version to remain dominant.

mcbishop• 6 years ago

You could compare oral cultures to mnemonics (memory aids) — the more extreme the story, the easier it is to remember / recall the underlying message. That's how our brains work. I recommend a book about oral cultures (and storytelling) called: The Spell of the Sensuous.

pier25• 6 years ago

why not tell them the (horrific) truth?

Because kids are not capable of understanding it.

lxmorj• 6 years ago

If you told a child "you see, when you go in the water, your lungs stop being able to absorb oxygen and your brain shuts down - after long enough - we cannot start it back up again" they aren't going to understand.

Using allegories you can put things into terms the child understands more easily. As they get older you can explain the truth behind the "lie" or story, if you like.

jaimex22• 6 years ago

You can just base the story on the truth, you don't have to lie.

Curious on your comment... Do you do Easter bunny, Tooth Fairy or Santa with your kids?

bobthechef• 6 years ago

First, we mustn't discount the importance of properly expressed anger. Just as there is such a thing as excess or inappropriate anger, there is also such a thing as deficient and inappropriate anger. What "inappropriate" and "excess"/"deficient" anger are will require mature situational judgement on the part of the parent. There's no way around that, and defaulting to "no displays of anger" is not a true substitute. Anger is in fact necessary to convey, both to children and adults (though the degree and manner will vary), the gravity of an injustice and this communication enables remorse, repentance, seeking forgiveness, and edification. It is one elements in shaping discipline and character. That doesn't mean flying off the handle like a madman, of course. Reason should remain intact.

Second, lying to children with silly stories is not a solution. It's one thing if you tell the child a funny story with the understanding that the child doesn't really believe it, but rather finds it both amusing to imagine and comprehends the underlying message. It's an entirely different thing to outright lie. Lying is never admissible, certainly never noble, and will only work to undermine trust toward parents and consequently parental authority.

P.S. Is there perhaps an element of romanticism in this article?

hutzlibu3• 6 years ago

"P.S. Is there perhaps an element of romanticism in this article?"

Totally. With all the readings about controlling anger, I missed a reference to the inuit custom of violence towards women.

https://www.pauktuutit.ca/abuse-prevention/gender-based-viol...

Although, maybe that violence is without anger. Would that be better?

oxymoran• 6 years ago

Obviously just being angry but keeping cool while saying something like, “I am angry” is fine. I think that the point is that usually anger comes with raised voices, yelling or worse which is not going to work. I don’t know if you have kids but I noticed that yelling at my 3 year old son only lead to him yelling at me in other circumstances. Similarly, even yelling at the dog to stop barking had the same result. I was teaching him to yell not how to behave. I do disagree with the article in that timeouts are highly effective if you get rid of the yelling aspect.

silicon24012• 6 years ago

Your entire point is relative, perhaps to your individual views or your society's norms. "Properly expressed anger" can be a stern talk in one culture and violence in another. Perhaps it's best to keep in mind that there is never a universal solution, only different options that have different effectiveness based on a particular situation

Talanes• 6 years ago

Second, lying to children with silly stories is not a solution. It's one thing if you tell the child a funny story with the understanding that the child doesn't really believe it, but rather finds it both amusing to imagine and comprehends the underlying message. It's an entirely different thing to outright lie. Lying is never admissible, certainly never noble, and will only work to undermine trust toward parents and consequently parental authority.

Were you one of those kids who never figured out the Santa Claus thing on your own and is still salty about it?

tzs• 6 years ago

Winter temperatures could easily dip below minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit

Trivia: you can omit "Fahrenheit" after -40 without introducing ambiguity. -40 F == -40 C. (You can assume it is not K or Ra because those place their 0 points at absolute zero so -40 K or -40 Ra is not possible).

corty• 6 years ago

Kelvin is only used without "degree" or °. So -40°C would be 233K.

albatross13• 6 years ago

Just to add some clarification, this only works at -40.

-44F is -42.2222C.

0_____0• 6 years ago

That's clever, but you're going to confuse readers and interrupt the flow of the article if you omit a unit where people expect one.

nicky0• 6 years ago

Hence "Trivia".

twic• 6 years ago

Could be degrees Reaumur though.

meritganset• 6 years ago

You _can_ omit it, but why would you?

And it absolutely introduces ambiguity for those who don't happen to know where these scales are equal.

dragosmocrii• 6 years ago

I had to read the title a couple times to make sense of it. I was reading "Intuit Parents", thinking it was some new product...

bch• 6 years ago

CBC interview/documentary from Ideas with Paul Kennedy “Never in Anger” parts 1 and 2 -

1) https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2263114454

2) https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2263120301

organsnyder• 6 years ago

My kids heard this story on the air while we were in the car. My then-eight-year-old remarked, "Yeah, that wouldn't work with us."

perfmode• 6 years ago

it's funny how the world works

a Harvard graduate student made a landmark discovery about the nature of human anger.

the article doesn't credit the inuits with the discovery.

By contrast, Briggs seemed like a wild child, even though she was trying very hard to control her anger. "My ways were so much cruder, less considerate and more impulsive," she told the CBC. "[I was] often impulsive in an antisocial sort of way. I would sulk or I would snap or I would do something that they never did."

but instead credits Briggs, who is the one exhibiting primitive behavior and being exposed to the higher path

nix237• 6 years ago

Does not seam to work very well either:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/23/canada-indigen...

Scaevolus3• 6 years ago

Do you have any evidence that those murders occur _within_ their communities by people raised like this?

codemac• 6 years ago

You have to know there is a huge difference between showing and managing your initial anger response, and plotting a murder.

silicon24012• 6 years ago

This comment doesn't seem to be made in good faith and seems to be looking to take offense. It's reasonably clear here that "discovery" is relative to the society Briggs is from. The people who cared for Briggs made a discovery (whether on their own or through a different nation themselves), and Briggs' people ("westerners" to use a simple descriptor) made the discovery through Brigg's experiences.

Discovered is not reasonably understood as "discovered for the first time by a human". For all we know the Inuit tribe themselves only discovered their techniques from another nation.

6gvONxR4sf7o• 6 years ago

Some of the stuff in here is obvious stuff that nonetheless is great to get reminders of, like leading by example. There was a unique piece that really intrigues me: Putting on a play/putting on a drama.

"Putting on a drama" seems like a pretty romanticized way to say it, but if I understand correctly, it's practicing better responses to events that led to bad behavior. "Johnny, I'm going to steal your toy, and instead of hitting me like you hit your brother, use your words." That kind of explicit practice/rehearsal of skills isn't something I'd have thought of, but it makes total sense as a valuable way to teach and learn.

duskwuff• 6 years ago

And it seems to me that deliberately teaching and practicing these methods in early childhood -- like in school -- could have profound implications. Right now, my impression is that public schools tend to take the approach of letting social skills develop organically through peer interactions. This seems like a huge missed opportunity.

DaiPlusPlus• 6 years ago

schools tend to take the approach of letting social skills develop organically through peer interactions

I believe this leads to peer-pressure and bullying. Bullying doesn’t have to be physically violent for it to have a lasting impact on someone’s life.

This seems like a huge missed opportunity

I suspect it’s by-design - there’s a large chunk of parents[1] who adamantly insist that schools should only teach the Three Rs and that it’s exclusively the parents’ responsibility to “raise” children. It’s difficult to advance this agenda without it being misrepresented as “liberal indoctrination” and then becoming politically unpopular.

[1]Invariably of the authoritarian-bent...

mberning• 6 years ago

You can witness something similar in many rural areas, specifically where people are surviving off the land. Rarely does mother nature or anything else cooperate with plans or expectations. People just get used to it and develop a very workmanlike attitude.

gooseyard• 6 years ago

The Briggs book referenced in the article is a really interesting read. I tracked down a copy after several articles like this one appeared shortly after her death. I assumed that the book primarily focused on child-rearing, but while that aspect of their culture is certainly an aspect of the book, her study of the concept of "ihuma" and how it applies to interactions between her host family and other adults in the same band were even more interesting to me, and her general observations about day to day life both on and off the ice were very enjoyable. It's not a tale of adventure unless you're really excited by cleaning fish, but as a voracious reader of native american culture it provides a great glimpse into a way of life which tragically would not last much longer.

wnscooke• 6 years ago

This isn't "Native American", it is Inuit. I am actually not sure which Inuit, but it is unhelpful to use such a blanket designation as "native american". Using that term would be like reading a book about Irish dancing and then telling someone you read a book about "European dancing", or reading a French cook book and declaring your love for "European cuisine". One day the same awareness, knowledge, and respect afforded to the nations and people groups of Europe will be afforded to those on Turtle Island. Not using the label "native american" when the focus or topic is a specific nation is a good start.

TristanDaCunha• 6 years ago

Highly counterinuitive.

ponker• 6 years ago

Inuit people have terrible life outcomes with disease, alcoholism, and suicide, and while there might be a lot of reasons for this, I would still take any of their examples with a grain of salt.

viburnum• 6 years ago

Yeah it’s not great for your society when you’ve been conquered.

GnarfGnarf• 6 years ago

That's only because they have been dominated by Western culture.

Remember that they have prospered for thousands of years in a difficult environment, where everyone needs to help each other and you have to get along if the tribe is to survive.

frostburg• 6 years ago

Look up vikings in Greenland about outcomes in that kind of environment with differing mores.

hosh• 6 years ago

Also something from indigenous cultures.

fireattack2• 6 years ago

I always find this kind of title weird.

Coming from a relatively "homogenous" (for lack of a better word) ethnicity, I think I can see a point to generalize something like "this is how X people teach their children math", but "control anger"? This seems to me a very personalized thing that varies wildly from family to family.

moate2• 6 years ago

Why? This is the "hard skills are real, soft skills aren't" dynamic I see so often (Hello, I'm the PM in a room full of Engineers).

Your first mistake is that teaching itself is very personalized and varies wildly from family to family. If we're willing to accept the premise that there are some commonalities among families from the same culture, then how they teach social skills important to that culture would likely be at the top of the list of things that would exist

fireattack2• 6 years ago

there are some commonalities among families from the same culture

My exact point is this: I can't think of any commonalities for "(teach the kids) how to control anger", not for my culture at least. Maybe Inuit people are different.

nickelpro• 6 years ago

It's easy to shape children so single mindedly when the cultural context of that child is completely controlled.

More simply, public schools and Youtube would break this sort of conditioning in short order. It only works if you only expose a kid to that singular unified world view until they lose easy plasticity. And as a personal note, I don't think that reserving kids to a single world view like that is net good, even if you view numbed anger as benefit (which I also don't).

fao_• 6 years ago

More simply, public schools and Youtube would break this sort of conditioning in short order.

Ehh? I've been exposed to decades of stimuli and yet I still have feelings and emotions that were created in my childhood, and it is difficult trying to unlearn them.

even if you view numbed anger as benefit (which I also don't).

I know someone whose parents are unable to control their irritation, they are in their 50s and 60s and they will spend 5 - 10 minutes shouting at the tablet simply because it is slow, etc. I and their other friends agree that their parents are essentially emotional children in the ways that they present. It's not a happy situation for anyone in the vicinity. Part of living in this world is learning to control some of your reactions and find more beneficial and productive ways of dealing with your feelings that satisfy you, and do not hurt other people in your surroundings.

Unfortunately, my friend's parents were traumatised early in life by their own parents, and never sought help. Never saw a therapist that would help them to deal with this stress in non-harmful ways.

Anger isn't necessarily a bad thing, for example in a revolutionary sense it has been vastly productive, but when you're screaming about throwing a computer through a screen because you misclicked something or because it is slow to load, then it is childish and should be controlled, because it is unpleasant for everyone.

opwieurposiu• 6 years ago

One Inuit parenting technique that works on my kids. If a child hits you or bites you, don't yell at them. Instead pretend to cry in an exaggerated way. I have found this to be way more effective than yelling or timeouts. My oldest is almost 4, so this might not work on older kids. But then older kids do not bite very often anyway.

hnick• 6 years ago

This works on puppies too. If they get a bit nippy, overreact to the biting.

There's probably a lot of similarity between what works on very young kids and puppies, at least until they learn to use that brain of theirs better.

yencabulator2• 6 years ago

That's the reaction a puppy would get from a sibling or its mom. The fake yelps immediately stop rough play, everyone looks around for a few seconds trying to figure out what happened. Then they bow to invite to play / signal no intent to harm, and continue playing with less biting.

james_s_tayler2• 6 years ago

Will try this!

jaimex22• 6 years ago

Biting them back also works.

How Inuit parents teach kids to control their anger (2019)

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