Page 57 - Walking_The_Red_Road

The following is from a discussion held with a group of First Nations and Métis women at an Aboriginal women’s organization in our community. Opening with medicines and prayer, the discussion centred on mental health but touched on many other issues and topics as well.
A mother talks about teaching her daughter the importance of responsibility:
She is 19 years old and I am really proud of her. She is not a drinker. She experimented with drugs once, got caught by the police, and had to experience the court system.
She was given a choice of fine or community service. She would have liked the fine.
But Mom said no, community service with so many hours, and I increased the hours, because she needed to take responsibility for herself in that way. That is the way the medicine wheel teaches us. The medicine wheel teaches us that we all have our own medicine wheel. It is up to us to look after our own. I have no control over [someone else’s] medicine wheel... I cannot take responsibility for her feelings or her behaviours. That is not my responsibility, that is hers, and that is what I taught my daughter. She has to be responsible for herself. So that is how I help her with her well-being, because for teenagers in today’s society, there is a lot of peer pressure out there: bullying and things like that. It was important for me that she has a good self-esteem. So I fed that as she was growing up. Today, she is really good at saying no. She can say no to her mom and that is good, because she thinks things out and she gets that big piece where she needs to be responsible for herself. We have no control over other people.
Another mother describes how a program fails to help her son take responsibility:
The youth referral program was like a slap on the wrist. It was a joke. I wanted him
to take responsibility and it just spiralled him into a different direction. I found this frustrating, as we were stepping up to the plate, and they send him for counselling for one hour sessions, and I believe a quarter hour, because there was no mandate on how long he needed to be there. Then that was it, it was over. It has been frustrating, coming through what we have. So where do parents go, because the agencies are not all supporting. They are not all on the same page. That has been my experience.
It is about helping next generation, connection, feelings, yes we do care. But telling them in the long run, it is all your responsibility what you choose to do.
There is balance in all things and we must strive to maintain balance and look after all aspects of our lives.
In this discussion, a mother talks about teaching her daughter balance through the medicine wheel.
The medicine wheel teachings teach us about balance in our life. We need to be able to look after all aspects of our life, the physical, the mental, the emotional, and the spiritual. This is how I raised her. She is very much about technology today, but she is also about ceremony. She knows if she needs to have a sweat, she can go approach an Elder and have a sweat. She knows that she can go and access community members when she needs that help, and she has parents that are there to support her. We work really hard to maintain our help for her, knowing that she has safe people around her all over the place that she can access. She is not afraid to ask for help when she needs it. She knows that there are people out there that are not healthy, but she gravitates toward the healthy people, which is good.
Walking the Red Road | REPORT OF THE URBAN ABORIGINAL COMMUNITIES THRIVE PROJECT | 57
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