Author: Tina Antonio
Family, wider community members, ancestors, nature and the spiritual world – in many indigenous cultures a child’s identity and wellbeing are deeply connected with them all and their wellbeing is some of the highest in the world.
As I was walking through the countryside the other day I met an A&E doctor who shared with me the shocking fact that every other day she witnesses the under-belly of childhood struggles. As we all know, mental health problems among our young people have risen to startling and epidemic proportions (1).
I got to thinking about how much we all need to be validated: asked not just about the activity of our day but also about our internal world: how we experienced these things; what brought us joy; what brought us strife. Connection is a fundamental human need (2). It’s a fundamental need for many animals too. It’s basic.
When a child doesn’t feel seen, for whatever reason, when emotions are ‘pushed down under’, they can feel shut out, worthless, alone. I pondered how when this happens they’ll gather these feelings into balls of resentment, rage, hate and confusion, turning from an open demeanor to one of guarded self-protection, avoiding relational intimacy at all costs – running away from pain. And how much damage this does to them, to others and eventually to society, particularly when it translates into broken relationships, mental health problems, substance abuse or gang culture. Yet in hectic, pressured lives, how can we give our children appropriate emotional validation and resilience? That’s an enormous pressure for parents to handle alone. And when family relationships are challenging it makes for a lonely and troubling world for children.
To be loved as a child is to know that your presence is a delight to another being. For many indigenous people, as with the Hmong people of Vietnam and Laos, a child is considered a treasure. Across the globe, among indigenous people though, there’s a commonly held belief that family encompasses so much more than blood family. Kinship and connection are prioritised over individualism. Children are placed at the heart of a whole web of connections: encompassing not just family but community, nature, ancestors and the spiritual world.
“In cultures where creating connections with children is everyone’s shared gift no child ever feels alone”
Equally, being loved and seen as a child is to be guided, trusted with real life opportunities to find and test new skills, enough challenge to stretch and build confidence, not enough to frighten and swamp. In many indigenous cultures, children are given early opportunities to prove themselves and to gain trust and respect. The Runa tribe in the Amazon allow their children to experience many parts of the adult’s world: to try adult tasks, to overhear conversations about complicated emotions even. Children aren’t always protected. They are taught about the everyday aspects of life which they’ll have to manage when they are grown. Life certainly isn’t perfect and there are increasing and terrible challenges which indigenous people face but in the presence of a range of caring adults, at its best children learn, both to succeed and also how to fail and get back up again in practical everyday scenarios which prepare them for adulthood. They have both boundaries and the widening vistas needed to create a sense of self which they can trust.
To be loved creates a foundation of self worth and belonging. It takes time.
And perhaps it also takes community.
Today, the degree to which motherhood and fatherhood takes place in relative isolation, with a high reliance perhaps on schools for support, seems directly related to a country’s prosperity. In a society where parents are juggling work and families and where schools have ever limited resources this can be hard for parents and child, particularly for single parents or those facing disadvantage. In contrast, in many indigenous communities caring for children is not an isolated duty. It is a shared role, embarked upon with joy by many individuals within the community: aunties, uncles and friends of the child, even the Village Chief – as with the Hmong tribes whose Elders take time to share knowledge and life lessons with the children and young people.
Cherished though these indigenous children are, they are not the centre of the adult’s world though. As the anthropologist Francesca Mezzenzana says: “To let children face the world re-orients their attention towards sociality, towards others” And, she might add it lifts the intense pressure from parents who might otherwise feel the pressure of being their all to their offspring, determining every possible outcome with a fearfulness bordering on control, or else be forced by circumstance to adopt a laissez-faire approach which can leave the child bouncing off a medley of outside influences.
Critically though, having a network of social connections taps into human nature and feeds our emotional wellbeing and mental health. Neurologists are making direct connections between wellbeing levels and the ability of individuals to build wide, and this bit is important, ‘deep’ connections with others (2). If loneliness creates emotions of loss and pain then it stands to reason that connection would do the reverse. Empathy and giving to others fires happy chemicals like oxytocin. Connections also reduce stress. How much more bearable lifes challenges will be for our youngsters if they know that they don’t face them alone .
Of course there are endless sources on the internet telling children and young adults that the antidote to poor mental health is to forge social connections. But for a child who feels alone, or one living in the mental isolation of disadvantage and abuse, that is a very long way to reach. It seems to me that children need to have the tools and that it needs to be a two-way process: community reaching in as much as child reaching out. Something which starts way before the problems emerge, when it’s a lot easier to remedy.
There are so many ways to do things. Maybe there are ways to learn from other cultures to help our children feel secure in a wide range of relationships and situations. Rooting children and their parents in their communities and in nature, not on its margins, encouraging them to play a larger role, to gain confidence and respect. Perhaps.
Tribal Songs is a social enterprise working to connect the general public, particularly children and young people, with the insights and wisdom of indigenous cultures world-wide to improve mental health, to conserve nature and to encourage respect and support for tribal-heritage communities across the world.
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