Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander child rearing Practices matrix Secretariat of National Aboriginal and1 Islander Child Care Contents Introduction .........................................3 Methodology ........................................4 How to use this matrix ...........................5 How children are viewed ........................6 Pregnancy and birth ..............................9 Babies ................................................12 Copyright © SNAICC 2011 Mothers .............................................23 ConCept Fathers ...............................................27 Jane Harrison Relationships ......................................31 ReseaRCh Responsibilities...................................46 Allara Ashton, Joel Hawting and Jane Harrison Gender ...............................................48 GRaphiC desiGn Nina Kelabora Developmental milestones ...................53 AcknowledGements Law and culture ...................................58 SNAICC would like to thank Waltja Tjutangku Values ................................................67 Palyapayi Aboriginal Corporation and the Warrki Jarrinjaku ACRS Project Team, Yorganop, Ceremonies ........................................75 Kapululangu Aboriginal Women’s Association and Dr Zohl de Ishtar, Merridy Malin, and Teresa Language and communication ..............78 Bowden Butler for allowing us to include their Learning and teaching .........................84 work in this resource. SNAICC would also like to thank Craig Hammond, Behaviour ...........................................96 Sherri Longbottom, members of the Child Rearing Discipline ......................................... 101 Stories Internet Interest Group, and contributors from the 2010 SNAICC Conference for their Playing ............................................. 106 involvement in our project. SNAICC would like to thank the many wonderful mob for sharing their Eating .............................................. 111 invaluable knowledge, and sends a big thank you Sleeping ........................................... 114 to Melissa Brickell for her assistance in the final production of this resource. Hopes .............................................. 116 Child rearing differences in practice .... 119 Afterword ........................................ 125 SNAICC acknowledges Elders and Traditional Custodians of lands and seas across Australia. Annotated bibliography ..................... 126 2 Introduction This matrix aims to document some customs and practices will be preserved for traditional and contemporary child future Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rearing practices among a range of families raising children. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander This matrix is informed by a strength- families and communities. It is part of based approach to working with a larger Child Rearing Stories project, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander which primarily aims to promote and people. In acknowledging Aboriginal preserve Aboriginal and Torres Strait and Torres Strait Islander child rearing Islander child rearing practices. practices, we aim to help workers gain As the national peak body representing a greater understanding of the way in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and families, SNAICC is interested people ‘grow up’ their children and hence in promoting culturally appropriate to promote culturally appropriate work practices among those who support practices. and care for our children. It must be acknowledged that there is The Growing up our way: Practices no one way in which Aboriginal and Torres matrix is a collation of material collected Strait islander people raise their children, from literature and a synthesis of the child that families may draw upon child rearing rearing themes found in that literature. It practices from a range of cultures and aims to recognise the uniqueness and value that the child rearing practices of any of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander one culture are no more ‘valuable’ child rearing customs in the hope that these than those of another. 3 Methodology • Before research was conducted, any • Key texts were then selected, of possible related ethical problems were which 15 were thoroughly analysed identified. For example, interviewees for content denoting a child rearing were provided with transcripts of their practice and that content was interviews and shown the quotations extracted as a quotation. selected, giving them the opportunity • The project identified key Aboriginal to consent to their material being informants with lived experience to share. used for the project. Potential interviewees were shortlisted • We sourced and identified relevant and a series of these were interviewed material – including books, articles and key themes from their interviews and databases. pulled out. • An internet search was conducted • Also included were quotations that using the search terms ‘Aboriginal child emerged from other activities in the rearing’, ‘Aboriginal child-rearing’, wider Child Rearing Stories project ‘Aboriginal growing up’ and ‘Aboriginal including interviews, children’s self- children practices’. Databases that publishing workshops and an interactive were searched included: conference workshop. – AIATSIS site under the category • ‘Grounded theory’ methods informed ‘Social behavior – socialisation – child the next stage of the research; that is, rearing’, from which 535 titles were practices were coded and thematically identified, and 260 of these were classified as themes emerged, with the filtered for content, with a sub group quotes then being grouped accordingly. of 68 (going back to 1984) selected for • Wherever it is known, the key follow-up for future content analysis informant’s cultural heritage – that – FaHCSIA website – Longitudinal is, whether they are Aboriginal and/or Study of Indigenous Children Torres Strait Islander or non-Indigenous – National Child Protection – is noted, as is the geographic area from Clearinghouse which the quotes were sourced. – Australian Indigenous HealthInfoNet – Cooperative Research Centre – Aboriginal Health – SNAICC’s own resources. 4 How to use this matrix This matrix is intended to be a living contradict others; any such practices document, to be added to as more should be thought of as taking place practices are collated from the literature, within a wider context. more interviews are conducted, and more Users of the matrix are also warned against information on child rearing is shared with drawing conclusions from one quotation SNAICC or comes to SNAICC’s attention. in isolation. Rather, the complete body of The quotations are drawn from a small examples gives a diverse picture of child sample of the available literature on child rearing practices in Aboriginal and Torres rearing. Under-represented in the matrix, Strait Islander communities. for example, are quotations relating SNAICC recommends that this document to contemporary, urban child rearing can be used to facilitate discussion within, practices. Users of this matrix are urged to and with, local communities, to enable recognise that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Aboriginal and Torres Strait people to Islander peoples are not a homogenous reflect on, support, value and validate group, and that some practices may their own child rearing practices. 5 How children are viewed This section details perspectives on the way in which Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families and communities view children and babies RefeRenCe “When Yapa and Anangu look at babies and young children Warrki Jarrinjaku ACRS Project they see young adults. These ‘little people’ have a set place Team 2002, Warrki Jarrinjaku Jintangkamanu Purananjaku in the family and community, along with all the responsibilities – ‘Working Together Everyone of Law and culture. They may be addressed as ‘my young auntie’, and Listening’, Aboriginal Child Rearing and Associated ‘my mother again’ or ‘my young grandfather’.” Research: A Review of the Literature, Department (waltja 2001, cited on p. 16) of Family and Community Services, Canberra To be indulged is the right of the child and to indulge is the ReGion/GRoup/ obligation of the parent. GeographiCal aRea Australia wide literature (p.16) review instigated by Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi Aboriginal Corporation working with communities in the central desert region authoRs Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal RefeRenCe Children do not start to live at birth, or even at conception, Hamilton, A 1981, Nature for they pre-exist in the form of spirit children. and Nurture: Aboriginal child- rearing in north-central Arnhem (p.16) Land, Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, Canberra The Aboriginal model trusts the child’s knowledge of it own states, ReGion/GRoup/ GeographiCal aRea both physical and emotional. When the three year old is tired North-central Arnhem Land someone will carry it. No one says ‘Three year olds are old enough (Anbarra) to walk.’ In fact, no one makes generalisations about children at all. authoR (p. 128) Non-Aboriginal Each child is treated solely on the merits of its actual concrete situation at that moment… each child is… a valuable member of its community, as an individual. (p. 128) 6 Parents are pleased to see the child’s daring [risk taking] and neither encourage nor discourage. Just as the mother assumes that the baby knows best what it wants, so the adult assumes that the child knows best his or her own abilities and skills, and will exercise