This article may not be reflective of general Inuit practices. At the very least there is a lot of contradictory evidence that this is not how children are actually brought up in the Inuit community and that in fact at the very least there is a decent amount of corporal punishment when deemed necessary.
EDIT: Removed bit on physical abuse in the adult community because there are a lot of confounding factors there.
> Elders I spoke with say intense colonization over the past century is damaging these traditions. And, so, the community is working hard to keep the parenting approach intact.
Regardless, the article shows the ideal result. Colonization or not, it's impossible for one person to reach the ideal, let alone an entire tribe. To think otherwise leads towards the path of the Noble Savage [0]. Adults makes plenty of mistakes, and just like children, we need stories to guide us towards better behavior.
But it's not clear at all that this is the ideal result (from the perspective of Inuit practices) nor does it seem that is in fact the traditional approach.
From the reddit post:
> [I] came across this article on how Inuit leaders are protesting Canada's anti-child-abuse policy, because they say it is too harsh on traditional Inuit child-rearing practices like spanking. They complain that child protective services are unfairly removing children from Inuit homes, because they don't understand that Inuit tradition permits forms of physical discipline that might not be acceptable in broader Canadian society.
> I also found this collection of interviews with Inuit elders where they describe how things were in the traditional old days. When asked about discipline, Elder Tipuula:
> "If it was a boy, it was his father’s responsibility to discipline him. If he only wanted to spank him once, then he would only spank him once. He would behave for a while, and if he started to misbehave again, the father could spank him a second time.We women took care of our daughters. Some children reached adulthood without ever needing a spanking. Some of them needed to be spanked, and would thank us when they were older for correcting them. Parents would spank children to make them aware of things they had not been paying attention to. Some children were spanked when they did not deserve it and this was bad for a child’s development. When they realized they did not deserve a spanking, they became angry. Children who deserved to be spanked grew up being thankful for the discipline they received. Children who did not deserve to be spanked grew up to become angry people."
> Elder Ilisapi adds:
> "Some of us tended to take out our frustration on our children when it was our husband who we were angry at. Even if the child had done nothing wrong, if he made one small mistake, we took out our frustration on him. If children were treated like that, they could be damaged. It was their spouse they were angry at in the first place but they took their frustration out on their child. That is not the way to treat a child. It is not good."
It seems pretty clear that physical discipline is a part of the traditional approach, even if it is recognized as something that should have limits and be used carefully.
This seems to be in direct contradiction with the article's assertion that the parenting style is "gentle."
If anything, it seems potentially that this "gentleness" is the modern approach rather than the traditional one. There is a choice quote later on in "Interviewing Inuit Elders: Perspectives on Traditional Health" (the PDF link)
> Things are completely different today. We only reprimand our children verbally because we are not allowed to use physical discipline with our children anymore.
This article may not be reflective of general Inuit practices. At the very least there is a lot of contradictory evidence that this is not how children are actually brought up in the Inuit community and that in fact at the very least there is a decent amount of corporal punishment when deemed necessary.
EDIT: Removed bit on physical abuse in the adult community because there are a lot of confounding factors there.