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How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

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Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#61

Post by AtlasBarfed »

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.

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#62

Post by fhdkweig »

svat wrote: post #31

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?

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".

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#63

Post by jancsika »

foofie wrote: post #33
rayiner wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s almost as children are irrational creatures without fully developed brains and can’t handle the truth.

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…

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

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#64

Post by suriyaganesh »

trabant00 wrote: post #15

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…

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.

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#65

Post by thaumasiotes »

sublinear wrote: post #10
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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.

> 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.

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#66

Post by op00to »

iteria wrote: post #56
Obscurity4340 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 c…

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.

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#67

Post by op00to »

mantas wrote: post #6
op00to wrote: post #4

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.

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?

I think the key to their parenting success is not "lie to your kids about the ocean" but "don't yell at your kids".

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#68

Post by foofie »

iteria wrote: post #56
Obscurity4340 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 c…

> 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.

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#69

Post by NemoNobody »

rawgabbit wrote: post #32
adriand wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 impor…

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.

"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.

Re: How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger (2019)

#70

Post by bitwize »

svat wrote: post #24
082349872349872 wrote: post #3

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 da…

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…

"That's my secret, Cap. I'm always angry."
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