Qallupilluit

Every time I cross the street holding a little hand, I pause at the edge of the road. “We look left, then right, then left again.” Eventually, a ball will roll into the road, and I watch a little head whip left, right, then left again as that child, a little older now, nears the street.

I have used classical conditioning in this example, just like dog training. We look both ways until it becomes an unconscious habit. I have found that after doing this for years with multiple kids, I am the most conditioned. Every time I go to cross the street with children, I find myself saying without much thought – “we look left….”

Inuit parents near the arctic circle have to contend with other dangers. They live in a  completely different type of environment. They also have a parenting style worth emulating. Michaleen Doucleff, Ph.D., wrote about her experience living with an Inuit family in her book Hunt, Gather, Parent. If you're looking for books on positive parenting techniques, this one is worth a read. In her book, she explains how parents use stories to help keep their kids safe. One of these stories is about a monster named Qallupilluit.

Qallupilluit captures children that wander too close to thin ice or any body of water. The monster then takes them away and drowns them. There is nothing the parents can do once they are captured. I have read descriptions of this monster being mermaid-like and stuffing the captured kids into a sac. Until I learned this description, I pictured Qallupilluit with tentacles, and that’s still the version I like.

Qallupulluit is a metaphor for ocean currents and hypothermia. Parents can do nothing after a child is lost to arctic waters. What they are saying is true. Unseen ocean currents and freezing temperatures can take kids away and drown them. This story explains this concept more understandably.

There is no unnecessary fear being created here. There are forces that the child does not understand that could kill them.  Developmentally, children are not able to think in abstractions. Even teenagers have not yet internalized their mortality and therefore act at times as if they are invincible. It is not stupidity. It is their place in development.

While children don’t think in abstractions, they do have natural instincts. These Inuit parents are leveraging those instincts. That ancient feeling of something lurking just beyond the campfire light has kept us safe throughout the course of our species. Instinct is deeper and more powerful than intellectual understanding, and fear is a powerful motivator.

So rather than attempt to teach kids about ocean currents, the parents evoke powerful instincts. In an environment such as the Inuit people live, this is not a frivolous use of fear.

The parenting style and significant trait of the culture Michaleen highlighted in her book was the lack of anger. She explains that anger “gets in the way” and doesn’t have a place in the culture. I think this is worth emulating. It seems the Inuit people understand building strong parent-child relationships.

The use of anger is also the use of fear. It may seem like the fear would be of being yelled at or hit, but something much worse is happening—the fear of not being loved runs underneath. Everyone feels angry at times, and this, of course, includes parents. Using anger to get a result is different. It teaches nothing. If the only reason to follow a parent's instruction is the fear of anger rather than a fear of what would happen or an understanding of the why behind the instruction, then this is the fear of love being withheld. It gets results, but after a while, some kids can harden and show how scary anger can be. Even worse, some disengage altogether.

Imagine the same scenario with anger being used rather than a story. A child wanders too close to the ice one day. The parent sees this and angrily yells at them until they are in tears. The thought is that this is justified because it is for their well-being. But the tears are not the result of an understanding of the danger of the water. They are the fear of being unloved by their parent. It may work to keep them away from the ice, but this fear used to motivate them is very different from the fear associated with a survival instinct.

These stories explain the danger of death in a way that the children have the faculties to understand. Primal fear. Using that primal fear to get them to pick up their room is dishonest and an abuse of power. Understanding the true power of anger and why it motivates children, it becomes evident that the path will come with consequences. Fear should be used with great caution and tact. If a child refuses to look left, then right, and you live on a busy street, for example.

How about our own lives? How much extra fear are we bringing into our lives through the stories we choose? Our bodies do not know the difference between the stress and fear we feel when it is caused by real life or the media we ingest. If it’s worth examining in parenting, how we treat and talk to ourselves is also worth a look.

As I mentioned in The Tactical Antagonist, some tension, stress, and even fear are significant story elements. But there must be a reason. They are best used when they teach something.