Fantastic read on how Inuit parents use oral story telling (vs raising their voices, getting angry, etc) to help their kids learn to regulate their big emotions. My girl is only 6mo now, but when she's a toddler, this is the parenting style I hope to be able to draw on to enhance our attachment while instilling healthy emotional regulation in her!
@kingspal1 I've encountered this article before, and it's a good time to encounter it again, having an 18-month-old who is now officially a toddler and needs to learn how to behave.
I really like the idea of storytelling as a way of explaining what needs to be done or what shouldn't be done.
I think there is something detrimental about fear mongering and lying to children about the realities of the world though -
The examples they give of Inuit stories are creative horror stories designed to scare the children into good behavior...
I guess there might be a cultural expectation I've not understanding that these things are "true" But little kids aren't going to explain that, and that makes it sit not so well with me in terms of adoption into my own parenting...
@raphael1090 Inuit choose to do this as their children are at-risk for drowning or disappearing. When you live on ice or surrounded by water, especially now with global warming, it’s necessary. Children don’t often respond to how finite death is but they do respond to fear. Most Inuk folks truly do believe in these stories as well.
I think it’s also important to remember how drastically different the weather and surroundings are. There can be a total white-out blizzard with barely any notice and a hospital is only accessible by airplane which cannot fly in poor weather conditions and is extremely expensive.
@ddkobaso Very much this. I think attachment needs to include instilling in your kids the reality of very real dangers that they are able to play a role in protecting themselves from, in this case, not wandering alone into the water and making sure to bundle up (wear their hats) to stay warm in the extreme frigid arctic temperatures.
I think the way that the Inuit draw on their rich oral history and storytelling traditions to enhance attachment while instilling their kids with emotional regulation is done so thoughtfully and in an age appropriate manner.
@raphael1090 My mom us to tell us ton of stories like " there was a little boy who didn't ate peas and his hair didn't grow." This is a true example. They were always negative and most of the time where about not important things. I wouldn't recommend it, for example it gave a bad relationship with food.
I remember a couple "horror" stories that had a good influence on me . One was told me by a friend of my mom, her sister used to sleepwalk confess to her parents when she lied (as an sleepwalker myself, it was very effective).And the other one was told by my mom, a friend of her had a medical emergency while skipping school.
I think anecdotes of consequences of bad behaviour, true or no, worked much better in the long run that blatant lies only a very young child can believe.
