Talking to kids about residential schools can be tough. These traumatizing and culture-stripping institutions imposed death, abuse and other types of inhumane cruelty onto innocent children. But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean we should shy away from it. This is especially true in light of the recent and horrific discovery of the remains of 215 children found on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in B.C.
“These were 215 beautiful, trusting little spirits who believed in their hearts that it would all work out,” said Senator Mary Jane McCallum in a recent statement to the senate. McCallum was taken from her Cree family to a residential school in Manitoba when she was just five years old. “They missed their families and never understood how they came to be where they were. One of my most persistent emotions in residential school was overwhelming loneliness and a bewildering feeling of abandonment.” “This is Canada,” McCallum continued. “Our hearts are broken. Canada is broken.”
For non-Indigenous parents who are settlers of this country, we cannot reverse the irreparable pain and intergenerational trauma residential schools inflicted on Indigenous families across Canada. But we can seek to understand and educate?both ourselves and our children. Once we start filling in the gaps in our own knowledge and understanding our own role in this, we can advocate, too. We can write letters to pu...