June 13, 2018

What have you learned about childrearing practices in this culture?

     Because this is a matriarchal society the children are mostly raised by their mothers or grandmother. They are raised to respect elders and they view the woman as the valued figure, they are raised to respect their culture and value their traditions. 

Which individuals have much respect and authority and why?

     For the Cherokee I have found that the elder hold the most respect and authority. They are the ones who have passed on the knowledge and culture from generation to generation, and they are the reason that this culture continues on because once they are gone, unless you have spoken to an elder you wont understand the culture and where you came from. 

What type of family structures or family type did you observe?

    I can personally say that I have not yet gotten to observe families together however I have been able to be apart of some really good discussions about families. Today we went to a rehab center and we discussed how sometimes the families are lost because of the persons choices, this isn’t always done to punish the person but to help them during the process because sometimes it is seen that when the families visit it is harder on the patients and it sometimes they phase down. Then on the other hand you have the families that are so supportive and they never want to leave their loved one. This culture is also very well known for being matriarchal, the women tend to make the decisions and in previous years whoever was looked at as holding the most respect she made the decisions about war.

Who are the support systems in the community?

      In this community the support system is not only their families but also the whole tribe in general. On the first day of touring the hospital the group was told about a family who found out that their child was not in good health and the whole ER was filled with people from the community to be there in support of that child and his family.

Consider the word resilience as it would relate to a child and or family; "the ability to bounce back" from stress, challenges and vulnerabilities.

      I think that for this culture, when they are around the support that they have for each other it is easier for them to "bounce back" because they have each other. While at the rehab center we found that this the facility uses previous drug users who have been sober for at least a year to come and support the ones in treatment and this give the ones who are in treatment hope, when they know that someone is there like them and telling them their story they know that it is okay and grow from that experience. 

What do most children and families have that are resilient have?

     I think a lot of the families who are resilient have experience and strength from their experience. This culture is so resilient because of everything that they have been through and they still continue to support and grow as a culture. We have been able to experience such a small portion while here but we were told by one of the locals that she is so excited and proud to see the generations grow. One individual we got to talk to was 15 years old and he was so excited about his culture and to share his knowledge with us.