How Inuit Parents Teach Kids To Control Their Anger

For instance, one time someone knocked a boiling pot of tea across the igloo, damaging the ice floor. No one changed their expression. "Too bad," the offender said calmly and went to refill the teapot.

In another instance, a fishing line — which had taken days to braid — immediately broke on the first use. No one flinched in anger. "Sew it together," someone said quietly.

By contrast, Briggs seemed like a wild child, even though she was trying very hard to control her anger. "My ways were so much cruder, less considerate and more impulsive," she told the CBC. "[I was] often impulsive in an antisocial sort of way. I would sulk or I would snap or I would do something that they never did."

Briggs, who died in 2016, wrote up her observations in her first book, Never in Anger. But she was left with a lingering question: How do Inuit parents instill this ability in their children? How do Inuit take tantrum-prone toddlers and turn them into cool-headed adults?

Then in 1971, Briggs found a clue.