Disability Access -The School Years
Answers for Tribal Members with Disabilities & Their Families
Provided by Spirit Lake Consulting, Inc.
"Making life better"
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by Dr. Erich Longie Traditionally, the Dakota always put their children first. This was a matter of survival as well as of our traditional values. If you were not watching your child, if you did not teach him to swim or to be careful at the edge of the lake, he would fall in and drown. The most important gift you could give your child was independence. There was no social security, no Medicare, and although we have always had a strong sense of generosity, you were not expected to sit around your tipi while the other members of the tribe hunted buffalo or carried water.
She is too young to talk, and yet, she understood after a while that she is not to get up on that table. Too often, I see young parents say to a child, "Don't do that", without getting out of their chair or getting any response from their child. Maybe after the fourth or fifth time the child does something, they slap her hand, yell at her or actually stop the child from opening the door, climbing on a desk or whatever she was told not to do. Then, it happens a couple more times and the parent ignores it. This inconsistency is planting the seed of having a problem with your child's behavior as he or she gets older. The child has learned that you don't really mean what you say.
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