Rez schools hurt generations

Page 8

This column is dedicated to showing how those who have been affected by addictions can help overcome this "dis-ease" or to help them understand what an addicted loved one may be going through. One can begin to comprehend our people's present day battle with chemical dependency when one begins to understand what effect the residential schools had on those who attended, as well as, the inter-generational effects of that system.

When the children were taken away from their families to attend the schools, they were apprehended at one of the most important stages in human development. From birth up until around age six or seven, a child learns all of his/her thought, feeling, emotional and behavioral patterns. This phase in development is also called the attachment phase. This is when the child becomes attached to his/her parents. In healthy human development, the child learns the rights and wrongs according to the set of principles set by his/her parents. The child begins to trust his/her guardians and begins to "attach" him/herself to them. This phase was taken away from the First Nation people when the children were apprehended by the government to attend residential schools.

The children could not attach themselves to their natural parents at this stage. They were then taught at these schools that their way of living was wrong, sinful and evil, that their Creator was evil and they were pagans damned for hell if they continued to worship him. The children were sent back to their families during special holidays and one can only imagine the state of confusion that they were in.

They loved their parents, but the residential school system started to brainwash them into believing that everything that they believed in was wrong and evil. So when they went back home they felt shame, guilt and began to hate who they were and where they came from. Add to this the fact of racial discrimination and the five major abuses that also occurred in this system: mental, physical, emotional, spiritual and sexual abuse, and one can begin to understand the pattern of chemical dependency that was about to develop.

Any form of abuse is cyclical. It continues on and on until the cycle is broken. These children, who lost the attachment phase of development, did not know how to attach themselves to their loved ones.

As they grew older and began to have children, they didn't know how to attach themselves to their children, most were in heavy denial about what had happened to them in residential school and they had taken on chemical dependency as a coping skill. When their children were in the attachment phase of development, they also didn't know how to attach and they began to see alcohol and drug abuse as normal. This generation of First Nation children also suffered the same consequences as their parents and were sent to residential schools and the cycle repeated itself. This cycle of abuse within our community continues today.

Not surprisingly, there are physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and sexual abuses occurring in almost every single First Nation community. The effects of the residential school system are still very much alive for all of us. These inter-generational effects will continue until we break each cycle of abuse that is prevalent in our own individual lives.

Remember the four "A"s: Awareness that this abuse happened; Acknowledge that it did happen; Accept that it did happen; and now its time for Action to begin to heal ourselves.

It's time to forgive, but let's not forget.