Nearly every day my daughter watches those silly after-school sitcoms on TV; the ones with the annoying canned laughter in the background. More often than not, I overhear the children in the show talking back to their parents, throwing cheeky comments around and copping serious attitude. Worst of all, they are getting away with it. I know these shows have an impact on my daughter and every once and awhile I have to remind her that talking back to me doesn't fly in my house. A timeout in her room with no TV is what sometimes needs to happen.
Over the years, I've basically raised my children up alone as a single mother with very limited support from outside of my immediate family and it has not been easy. It has especially not been easy trying to instill respect in my children when I am constantly battling with the world outside where disrespect is all too common in our schools, our workplaces, on social media, etc.
The Dene law that states that young boys and girls should behave respectfully is one that I feel is very lost in today's society. In my opinion, children nowadays, especially teenagers, have really lost a sense of respect for adults. Children are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. They are observers and they are sponges soaking up all they see and hear. So when they see others behaving and engaging in activities that are less than respectful, they often mirror those actions.
As parents, if we don't walk the talk and show our children how to be respectful, how can we expect them to know what respect looks like? Children look up to their parents. They are the first people kids see and learn from. As parents, we must conduct ourselves in a way that is honourable and engage in healthy activities for our children's sake in order to model healthy behaviour.
photo sourced from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation</br
I'm almost certain that in most Dene communities, before colonization, parents did not discipline their children physically but by the time my mother was brought up in the early 60's, she knew what the willow stick felt like as punishment. My grandfather was more on the strict side, so when my mother was young she had to go pick her own willow stick when she got in trouble. When one of her siblings got into trouble, they ALL got in trouble.
However, my grandmother, did not ever have a hand raised to her when she lived out in the bush. In those days, honoured traditions still strongly existed and families set aside time for teaching children to be respectful through patience, redirection and guidance. When someone was acting particularly out of hand, the elders would step in and deal with them. Instead of physical punishment, shaming was often used as a tool of discipline when necessary in extreme cases.
One thing I know for sure is that the sense of community among many Dene people has been weakened since the early days of colonization and residential schools. This broken connection in our communities has been lost because we now mostly only communicate in our immediate family silos, if at that. Children used to be brought up with the love and support of the entire community surrounding them, where even aunts and uncles helped to discipline unruly children.
As the saying goes, 'it takes an entire community to raise a child' and it is true, but this well-rounded way of nurturing children is almost unheard of today. The concept of what it means to be a community – Hayorila- has waned.
We need to come together again and take care of our children in a safe and healthy community so that our children can be raised up under the protection of everyone in the community. Our communities need to be places where children can learn to be respectful, honourable and proud of who they are and where they come from. By receiving these life lessons from different members of their family, of all which have diverse viewpoints and wisdoms, children will gain diverse strengths to help them in different situations throughout their life.