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- By Elyse Wild
A culturally grounded parenting program is helping Native families across Indian Country break cycles of trauma and heal generational wounds.
When Sarah Shepard (Potawatomi) gave birth to her youngest son in 2023, things began to change. She had two older kids, then 11 and 8, and she loved being a mom, raising her family on the Hannahville Indian Reservation in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
“You are their whole world, and they are yours,” she told Native News Online. “Parenting really wasn't hard until my son was born.”
Doctors discovered that he had a genetic mutation that led to a seizure condition. His first few months of life were spent in and out of hospitals as doctors worked to control the seizures. The family was blindsided, and Sarah's husband fell into a depression.
The stress was overwhelming, and Shepard began to drink excessively to cope. In 2023, her children were removed from her care by the Hannahville Tribal Family Court. She snapped out of it immediately, she said, and began asking herself how she could be proactive and get them back.
“It was soul-crushing,” she said. “And then I saw a flyer for Jen and Jason's class.”
The flier was advertising “Motherhood is Sacred, Fatherhood is Sacred,” a parenting class rooted in Native culture, taught by a married couple from the Hannahville community, Jenn and Lexie Keshick — who goes by Jason — who have six children of their own.
The class is based on a Native-focused parenting curriculum developed by Native American Fatherhood and Families Association (NAFFA) Founder Albert Pooley (Hopi, Diné). The classes center on culture and traditional values to break generational effects felt across Indian Country, with many Native family histories including abuse or neglect in the Indian boarding school system and the trauma of cultural erasure by the federal government's campaign to “Kill the Indian, Save the Man.”
Pooley launched the program in 2002 to give struggling Native fathers a path to fulfilling their role as family caretakers. The program has now expanded to four curricula that are taught by 2,500 facilitators across Turtle Island, according to NAFFA.
“It's all about strengthening families, because there are so many families that are broken and torn apart," said Valerie Hollodaugh, international coordinator for NAFFA. “It teaches you're worth more than your worst mistake.”
Studies show that Native people have the highest rates of adverse childhood experiences — or ACEs — including abuse, neglect, household dysfunction or traumatic events. The term was coined by a landmark study conducted from 1995 to 1997 that showed the more ACEs a person experiences, the more likely they are as an adult to suffer from mental illness, chronic disease, substance abuse, and high levels of stress. ACEs range in level of severity, and researchers consider these effects to be intergenerational, with behaviors created by traumatic experiences passed from parents or caretakers to children.
Growing up, Jenn lived in fear of her mother's anger. Her mother controlled the household through anger, believing that was how you control children, Jenn said. Her grandfather attended residential schools, “and they didn't teach him how to love and have a family and be happy. He was an alcoholic and physically abusive.”
By the time Jenn was 23, she and Jason had a blended family of five children. Even though Jenn resolved to raise her children differently, she found herself mirroring her mother's behavior — using anger to parent.
“I ended up doing it. I ended up turning out just like that, because that's all I knew,” she said.
When the Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan was looking for parents to send to a Motherhood is Sacred, Fatherhood is Sacred facilitator workshop in 2021, Jenn and Jason volunteered, not knowing what to expect. The couple spent a week at NAFFA in Mesa, Ariz., with others from across Indian Country to learn the curriculum and bring it back to their communities.
Once they started the curriculum, they knew it was what they wanted to do. “These are the parents we want to be,” Jenn said.
During a virtual session of Motherhood is Sacred, Fatherhood is Sacred, recorded in 2021, Pooley states, “Family is the heart of Native people. It is not language — language is beautiful, but it is not the songs, it is not the dance, it is not the food. It’s family.”
NAFFA encourages creating rules of engagement for stressful situations and disagreements, as well as making goals as a family — something that has transformed the Keshicks’ relationship with each other and their children.
The couple knows their triggers and has three rules: "They don’t use the word divorce, never kick each other out, and don’t call each other names or swear at each other," Jason told Native News Online. After years of practice, “it’s just natural.”
Programs designed to strengthen family relationships have been shown to prevent ACEs in children and mitigate their effect on parenting. For Native communities, that could mean breaking the chains of generational trauma and reawakening cultural values that were forcefully taken via colonialism.
Few parenting programs are designed specifically for Native communities. NAFFA offers four curricula focused on strengthening families. Positive Indian Parenting, a program of the National Indian Child Welfare Association, also teaches traditional Native child rearing for contemporary families.
When Jenn and Jason returned to their community, they were nervous. They partnered with the tribe's family court system, offering their classes as one option to fulfill court orders to complete parenting education. They worried that they would be met with resistance and judgment from students.
“We thought people were going to be like, ‘Who are you?’” Jason said. “You got a kid in prison. You got one addicted. Who are you to tell us how to parent?”
But by sharing their own story, the couple says the participants warm up quickly, with any resistance turning into enthusiasm within the first couple of sessions.
Jason said he comes from a broken, alcoholic family, and Jenn's parents were divorced. Her household was angry and marked by addiction, she said. By sharing their own experiences, they help parents understand they're not alone.
“We understand your trauma and your hurt and your brokenness,” Jenn said. “The healing is needed so that you don't keep passing it down.”
Today, Jenn and Jason's home is full of life. During an interview for this article, they sit side-by-side at their kitchen table on the virtual call, their shoulders touching. The background is a symphony of family life — grandchildren babble and laugh over a Pixar movie playing in the living room, their adult son moves through the kitchen, dogs bark. Even though most of their adult children are out of the house, their home is full.
When Shepard saw the poster for Motherhood is Sacred, Fatherhood is Sacred, that full home is what she thought of.
“Jenn and Jason's house is always packed with cars and kids; they are always on the front porch together. You see that and think, ‘How do I get that?’” she said. “I knew that I was going to be court-ordered to do a type of parenting class, and I wanted to do it in my cultural way.”
The class was transformative during one of the most challenging times of Shepard’s life. This month, after a year and a half in foster care, her children will be returned to her custody.
The teachings resonated immediately, Shepard said. She can't erase the past, but she can do better now.
“These classes have shifted my way of thinking. It's not just about me, it's about the kids, it's about us as a family.”
As she prepares to welcome her children back home, Shepard, her husband, and their kids have already created their own rules of engagement.
A big rule for the kids is that they don't want to hear their parents yell and raise their voices, she said. “I was a big yeller before,” she said. “I want my kids to be heard. I want them to know that I am listening when they are speaking to me, and that what they say matters. They hold a lot of value.”
For Shepard, it's the beginning of a generational shift, one that Jenn and Jason are seeing in their own family.
“Our kids are way better parents than we ever were at that age,” Jenn said. “I always tell them, ‘You are so loving and patient and kind, and I am so proud of you.’”
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