Father's Day on the reserve: Quiet, real quiet.

Don Burnstick, the hilarious Cree comedian, says, 'you might be a Redskin (NDN) if ...the most confusing day in your community is fathers day...'

Confusing and frustrating.

Probably the most profound and difficult result of Canada's First Nation children being sent to concentration camps at age six is their complete inability to properly parent.

When I say proper, I mean producing self-reliant offspring capable of providing for themselves, productive and mature.

No surprise when you think about it. Parents model adult behaviour to their children. The kids eventually are 'programmed' to mimic the activity they see unfold in front of them. But only after intense experimentation with Life applying their own version of survival strategies.

There is also no surprise when we see adult Aboriginals attempting to recreate the order they experienced as kids at the residential schools. Applying strategies such as domination, control through threats, humiliating punishment, and more.

Survival at Indian residential school meant BEING QUIET! Having no respect given. Offering no resistance to authority. Having authority be sexually predatory. Obeying.

There's more...

Consider the effect of sustained enforcement of this condition on First Nation communities for over one hundred years.

It leaves a big mess, hey?

The Good News?

We're still here!

In spite of all the neglect, abuse and generally awful conditions over multiple generations, Canadian Indians assure the world that we are still alive and still have something of a culture left.

The Parenting can be learned. We are not doomed. There are ways to learn.

We are powerful at the core.

Much hard work lies ahead if we are to maintain stability and health in out villages, country or city, but it can be done.

Please check out my website for links to helpful websites for getting our parenting program together.

And also note the last entry in my Lifeskills Lexicon is "YOUTH - Our only hope."

If you are a Father today, I say congratulations and Thank You.

Harper Apologizes for strategy - "to kill the Indian in the child."

Canada's Prime Minister Steven Harper apologized to First Nations for the 100 year+ institutionalization of Canadas' Aboriginal Children.

The infamous Indian Residential Schools of Canada where Aboriginal children, and only Aboriginal children were rounded up and sent to live, work and pray. And hopefully, lose their Indian ways. One half of the kids attending would not live to graduate. Many secret burial grounds for these children are being discovered today.

One Elder I know called them 'sweat shops'.

My Dad was one of those children. He survived to go on to land on Juno Beach during the D-Day Invasion, and more.

Indian Residential Schools - It was attempted genocide. They failed. And now there's a huge mess to be cleaned up...

It was also a land grab. They won. In BC, anyway.

There was the full range of responses to the apology ranging from 'so, what?', to heartfelt tears being shed and shared.

I, for one, experienced relief from Mr. Harper's eloquent and thorough acknowledgement of wrongdoing.

It's an important step for the ongoing healing of traumatized First Nation communities in Canada.

It's an important development in the maturation process of the country, Canada.