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Children Quotes by Gabor Maté

63 Children quotes by Gabor Maté

All Children quotes Gabor Maté’s page

A mother with eight children learns that guilt isn’t the answer. She says true attachment matters more than forcing obedience. When a child depends on someone, the power to parent shifts, even if that person isn’t perfect. Peer‑oriented kids often settle for shallow bonds instead of deep love.

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“One effect of peer orientation is that the love and nurturance we have for our children cannot get through.”

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“Without attachment, the parent succeeds at most in cowing a child into obedience, at the price of grave damage to the relationship…

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“It is children's desire to be good for us that warrants our trust, not their ability to perform to our expectations.”

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“Peer-oriented children live in a universe of severely limited and superficial attachments. The quest for sameness being the least vulnerable way of…

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“The very fact that something is important to us can make our children feel less like doing it. The more we pressure…

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“Attacking family members is all too typical of peer-oriented children, leaving parents and siblings wounded. In most cases, the attacks will not…

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“As parents who make every effort we can to raise our children in loving security, we do not need to feel more…

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“When we focus narrowly on what we should be doing, we become blind to our attachment relationship with our children and its…

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“The power to parent will be transferred to whomever the child depends on, whether or not that person is truly dependable, appropriate,…

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“If a mother has eight children, there are eight mothers. This is not simply because of the fact that the mother was…

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“Young children cannot possibly understand the motives of adults. It means little to a young child that the parent feels love for…

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“Human beings want not only to survive, but also to live. We long to experience life in all its vividness, with full,…

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“In response to the intensifying cruelty of children to one another, schools all over this continent are rushing to design programs to…

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“When a child becomes so attached to her peers that she would rather be with them and be like them, those peers,…

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“For purposes of child-rearing, the crowning achievement of a working attachment is to instill in a child the desire to be good.…

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“Attachment divides the child's world into those the child likes and those the child is indifferent to, those who attract and those…

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“The loquaciousness of many children with ADD is notorious. One Grade 2 boy was called Talk Bird by his classmates, so incessant…

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“If development unfolds optimally and the child makes headway in becoming her own person, the need for attachment wanes. As it does,…

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“So what you've actually got is traumatized children. When children are traumatized that affects how they feel about themselves, which is deeply…

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“There is a foolproof way to distinguish peer-distorted counterwill from the genuine drive for autonomy: the maturing, individuating child resists coercion whatever…

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“The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they…

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“The primary culprit is assumed to be peer rejection: shunning, exclusion, shaming, taunting, mocking, bullying. The conclusion reached by some experts is…

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“The first reason why peer-oriented children have to harden emotionally is that they have lost their natural source of power and self-confidence…

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“It is easy to misinterpret the child's counterwill as a drive for power. We may never be fully in control of our…

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“Just as an adult-oriented child is more vulnerable in relationship to his parents and teachers, peer-oriented kids are more so in relationship…

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“Violent atrocities by teenagers against one another have become the stuff of headlines: at Columbine High School in Colorado; in Tabor, Alberta;…

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“When we feel frustrated, our first inclination is to change whatever isn't working for us. We can try to accomplish this by…

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“Vulnerability is usually attacked, not with fists but with shaming. Many children learn quickly to cover up any signs of weakness, sensitivity,…

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“The only reason for a child not to be aware of his own vulnerability is that it has become too much to…

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“The transmission of culture assures the survival of the particular forms given to our existence and expression as human beings. It goes…

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“There is yet another reason why peer-oriented kids are insatiable. In order to reach the turning point, a child must not only…

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“When we first went to Provence, I assumed I would be observing a different culture. With attachment in mind, it became obvious…

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“Also bearing witness to the unbearable nature of the vulnerability experienced by peer-oriented kids is the preponderance of vulnerability-quelling drugs. Peer-oriented kids…

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“I see so many situations where a child is in the midst of plenty, a virtual banquet spread out before him, but…

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“The hardcore drug addicts that I treat, are, without exception, people who have had extraordinarily difficult lives. The commonality is childhood abuse.…

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“It is easy to blame television or the movies or rap music for desensitizing our children to human suffering, to violence, and…

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“The chief and most damaging of the competing attachments that undermine parenting authority and parental love is the increasing bonding of our…

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“Peer-oriented kids are repelled by similarity to their parents and want to be as different as possible from them. Since sameness means…

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“Human beings have an intuitive understanding of the point at which vulnerability is too much to bear. Vulnerability due to fear of…

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“Physiological stress, then, is the link between personality traits and disease. Certain traits — otherwise known as coping styles — magnify the…

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More by Gabor Maté

“As parents who make every effort we can to raise our children in loving security, we do not need to feel more guilt than…

“The fact is, we in this society are often quite removed from our own emotional reality.”

“Shame is the deepest of the “negative emotions,” a feeling we will do almost anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of shame impairs…

“Many adults have not attained maturity — have not mastered being independent, self-motivated individuals capable of tending their own emotional needs and of respecting…

Autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything.

“If a mother has eight children, there are eight mothers. This is not simply because of the fact that the mother was different in…

“Without attachment, the parent succeeds at most in cowing a child into obedience, at the price of grave damage to the relationship and to…

“Attachment is our connection with the world. In the earliest attachment relationships, we gain or lose the ability to stay open, self-nurturing and healthy.…

“So what you've actually got is traumatized children. When children are traumatized that affects how they feel about themselves, which is deeply ashamed because…

“Even without world wars, revolutions and emigration, siblings growing up in the same home almost never share the same environment. More accurately, brothers and…

“We think that there are people who are normal over here, and then there’s the pathological ones who have depression, anxiety, addiction or schizophrenia…

“One cannot get much more vulnerable than to expose oneself psychologically. To share oneself with another and then be misunderstood or rejected is, for…

“The areas of the cortex responsible for attention and self-regulation develop in response to the emotional interaction with the person whom we may call…

“Peer-oriented children live in a universe of severely limited and superficial attachments. The quest for sameness being the least vulnerable way of attaching, it…

“The United States contains less than 5 percent of the world’s population but houses nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners.”