However, residential schools have created a detrimental intergenerational effect. Residential schools laid the foundation for the epidemic we see within Indigenous communities today. Children at the schools grew up without nurturing and loving homes that uplifted them to partake in their culture, leading them to have misconstrued ways of living. Many of them, as adults, lacked parenting skills and utilized tactics of abuse on their children. Similar to the abuse they experienced within the schools. This has created a perpetuating cycle of domestic abuse within Indigenous homes. 

 Also, nearly fifty percent of the children who attended the schools did not benefit from the education. They often lacked basic reading and writing skills, leading to lower paying jobs, and a lower standard of living. 

 The trauma of the school’s colonization tactics has often led to self-abuse in an attempt to cope. According to the University of British Columbia, “Among First Nations people aged 10 to 44, suicide and self-inflicted injury is the number one cause of death, responsible for almost 40 percent of mortalities. First Nations women attempt suicide eight times more often than other Canadian women, and First Nations men attempt suicide five times more often than other Canadian men. Some communities experience what have been called suicide epidemics.”

 Also, simply being a descendant of a parent who attended residential schools, increases your chances of being sexually assaulted by 2.35 times. 

 All in all, residential schools have negatively impacted the community. Indigenous peoples are still fighting to re-learn and practice their culture. Overcoming such a mass genocide has posed many challenges, but none that we as a community can not overcome!

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