Because they can’t be reasoned with, and don’t understand, parents treat them with a great deal of tolerance and leniency.

Young children don’t possess these qualities and are easily angered, cry frequently and are incapable of understanding the external difficulties facing the community, such as shortage of food.

It’s only when they are older and begin to acquire thought that parents attempt to teach them or discipline them.

Jean Briggs has worked with the Inuit of the Canadian Arctic and has described how, within these communities, growing up is largely seen as a process of acquiring thought, reason and understanding(known in Inuit as ihuma).