shera

If you want insight into “giving, selfless” parents and First Nations families, you might want to get acquainted with the residential school program and how that policy impacted First Nation’s life, past and present.

The residential school experience has left a far-reaching and painful legacy. Its impact on parenting was one of the more serious outcomes.

http://uregina.ca/datalibrary/holdings/FN_regional_survey_ch2.pdf

resiliency and self-reliance

I think that it's really important to understand how environment plays a huge role in the up-bringing of a child/teenager/youth. Aboriginal children growing up on-reserve vs. off-reserve will experience a very different lifestyle, it's similar to how the general population might experience a difference growing up in urban environments vs. rural. Even when a reserve is located near an urban centre, the environment is a different place. It’s about recognizing that while ones upbringing might have strengths, that still means parents, children and communities need to help develop the weaknesses. There are strengths and weaknesses to any environment.

So I'm a little conflicted by the previous commenters' remark on parental "accountability". At a certain point, it's important to realize that these are teenagers in theis article, and it seems pretty clear that for a greater portion of their life, have had to be responsible for themselves (after school jobs, keeping up grades, waking up for school). I think the reporter/writer is trying to say is that these youth are trying to overcome negative statistics regarding youth drop-out/substance-abuse rates by staying positive and relying on themselves to be accountable. It sounds to me like these kids know the consequences of not going to school, and many of them have forward-thinking aspirations for their futures. And while there are challenges, I guess as readers, that's what this whole series on Native youth is about. To try and take a closer look at what kinds of challenges Aboriginal youth are experiencing, they will be different than a middle-class north van kid living in the suburbs. I wish the interviews went more in-depth, as the challenges pointed out in this article barely skim the surface.

When we look at children and youth and how to encourage positive lifestyles, most children really benefit from a parent truly showing interest in their life and asking how they are doing. In a way, it is really simple. When a family has two working parents, the amount of time that an entire family can spend together can really be limited so perhaps for these Aboriginal youth growing up on-reserve appreciate having their busy mother/father encourage them in something as simple as attending school actually means a lot in the long run. It's common knowledge that families in poverty often experience more stress and potential crisis then families from moderate income. In which case, times of non-stressful family interaction is potentially more limited and therefore would increase in value.

It's not about feeling guilty about where you come from, it's about working so that all children/youth have the opportunity to experience things that other youth are privileged to. And if the youth in these stories are able to feel encouragement from their family that furthers their resiliency, motivational drive and success, well, that's a step forward, for everyone.

Residential schools

@KWD

I'm very familiar with residential schools and their devastating impact on many aspects of native life, including parenting. I'm realizing my comment sounded far too flippant. That wasn't my intention. I would only hope there could be an open discussion about parenting native youth. They didn't come into this world on their own and will likely have their own children one day. How do we break the cycle caused by residential schools? How should the approach differ on the reserve and off the reserve? How do we empower parents and communities to support their youth?

@cboo44 Yes there are

@cboo44 Yes there are fraudulent claims for compensation for residential school. There are lots of fraudulent claims made by people (the general public) when they think they can get compensation. This is nothing new, and nothing inherently Aboriginal-specific. I don't think the commenter posted a link to residential schools to provide a reason for a lack of "accountable parenting", I think they were trying to provide context. Many people don't know about residential schools, best to be informed than presume.

Anyways, this article does not even say that parents are not "accountable". That is a conclusion being assumed by the commenter's. Many of the parents sounds like they are working, struggling with money but nonetheless trying to provide for their family structure. Why do we jump to the conclusion that these parents are not caring for their children? Living in low-income environments has its challenges. A lack of additional time to spend with your family and raising your children and being there at 3pm when they come home from school is one of these challenges.

I think Shera sums it up pretty well with their latest comment. There is no easy answer to support parents who have been affected by residential school to the point where it negatively impacts their parenting. I think something many Aboriginal youth are realizing, is that they have to be stronger than many of their past generations to break that cycle, recognize and move forward from that abuse and try and reconnect with their culture/history. It's work that is already being done by many motivated and intelligent native kids working in non-profit organizations, their student councils or their band councils. It's not the best answer, but it definitely sheds some light on the growing amount of assertiveness taking place amongst the younger generations of aboriginal people.

Time to throw away the crutch, people.

Residential schools and their nefarious histories should not weigh heavily in this discussion. For the most part anyone who ever attended one could either be a grand parent or could have passed on a long time ago.

Not every child that attended residential school was turned in to an emotional wreck. Children are resilient and for the most part would have lived relatively normal lives after graduation/departure as long as they had supportive families to return to.

What tends to happens is that residential schooling becomes the scapegoat for everything that ails native society today and it's not.

It's as if repeating something over and over will make the pain go away and it doesn't do any thing but to re-open an old wound and never let it heal.

There is a movement afoot to dispense with the Indian Act which may or may not be a good thing. If this is not done carefully then things could go down hill over the long term. Focusing on old news, in this case the residential schools will not prevent that.

@snert Ummm....The last

@snert Ummm....The last residential school closed down in 1996. Many people in my family have gone to residential school and are currently young parents with children in elementary school. Residential school impacts peoples ability to parent, even if they were not physically/sexually/emotionally abused simply because they grew up from the age of 5 [living] in a school system and were not familiarized by a parent directed environment for the greater portion of their formative years. So, it's not an excuse, but as humans often learn from example it does create a lot of adults who are doing the best that they can with little personal experience as to what parenting should actually look/feel like.

I do agree that when speaking about residential school it needs to be used as a context as to why issues exist and as a challenge to overcome, not as a reason to allow things to stay as they are.

@alive i don't think the

@alive i don't think the argument is that anyone was against education. It was the fact that the federal government and churches put Aboriginal children in places that were not safe, contained varying levels of abuse and compromised their physical & psychological health. The motivation behind residential schools were literally described as putting an end to the "indian problem". This can be read about in many of the letters sent to and from gov't officials, teachers, nuns/brothers and priests via Canadian Heritage documents.

No one is saying that people wouldn't use technology to continually partake and advance themselves in contemporary society? But it is detrimental to Aboriginal people that history is recognized and learned about within a broader Canadian scale in order for the country on a whole to move forward together. Without proper education of history and the past, it's impossible for people who were mistreated to move forward with a positive vision for the future.

Why was this surprising??

"And, surprising to me, most of the bullying they've experienced was not related to racism, but came from within their own cultural groups."

charlie no song

Sorry but no, it's not impossible. It does however take a lot of head work to get rid of the ghosts of the past and wrest the control of ones life away from them no matter who they may be.

It is a vicious cycle but it not one that can't be broken. If one needs spiritual help to do so then so be it but there are other means to do so as well. The first step, though is to realize that you and only you are in charge of your feelings, no one else.

@snert I agree with your

@snert I agree with your sentiments, that strength comes from the individual. But you partially misquoted my point which was: "Without proper education of history and the past, it's impossible for people who were mistreated to move forward with a positive vision for the future". What I meant by this is if we want Aboriginal children and youth to have more confidence, assertion, and strength to provide them with a suitable platform for them to become leaders in their communities, then the education system needs to include how Aboriginal relations intertwine within Canadian history. Educating youth about the history of their people AND canadian history is a step forward in allowing all children to have a better understanding of culture and their countries' history. I should add, I not only think this education needs to be part of provincial school curriculums, it needs to start at home with peoples families and communities. There's a sense of confidence and understanding that can be passed to children by teaching them the pros of ownership of information and history.

@alive Back in the day,

@alive Back in the day, aboriginal people did have their own systems of providing education to their own children. It was not a formal education, more like teaching children skills they needed to help provide for their community. You can read more about it in a book called: Shingwauk's Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools. However, it would not have provided them with the ability of learning the english language. In the case of residential schools, the process and structure of this education initiative did not come from a place that was respectful and valued Aboriginal children. In fact, it was almost entirely the opposite; they were considered flawed from birth due to the fact that they were ethnically Aboriginal. Not only this, but the extraction of children from their homes to be placed in a school system that did not offer them the same amount of care and nurturing needed as a child has caused varying degrees of harm to Aboriginal communities. This created communities of adults who were children-less which ultimately lead to nations of people that were imbalanced/lacked purpose. This also created generations of parents who lack instinctual skills to provide for their family. The attributes of residential school vary in degrees of impact from issues with child/parent attachment, empathy, anxiety to of course, the more extreme. Yes, ownership and accountability needs to be taken by them. But like I said, I don't think Aboriginal people were against having their children be educated so they could work and participate in native and non-native communities but due to the structure and the amount of abuse that happened within these schools, it proved to be unhealthy for the overall population. The structure was not set up to provide Aboriginal children a proper place to learn and succeed on a whole. I'm glad to hear you have some native friends that had a good experience at residential school, i know there are people that appear to have went through it unscathed which is a positive thing to hear. I guess, I don't really have the answers to everything here, but I do know that based of the Urban Aboriginal Peoples Study, that the report suggests that urban Aboriginal people that grow up with a better understanding of their culture, history and language prove to develop stronger resiliency skills and healthier lifestyles. I think that's really interesting.

@alive also, i realize that

@alive also, i realize that i'm answering your question in terms of what to do now regarding residential schools. I don't find it particularly meaningful to continually debate the past. The past has happened, and all I can control, influence, educate, and work towards is the future.

charlie no song

You are correct, there is no point in debating the past. Like you say, the important thing is that the impact of past events are understood in the context of today’s struggles.

I’m not sure you meant to say that past treatment “created generations of parents who lack instinctual skills”. It seems to me that what happened was that the cultural (learned skills) link between past and present was severed. There is a huge gap between past and present FN cultures. And this failed cultural connection probably underlies a great deal of the difficulities faced by FN people today.