“It is children's desire to be good for us that warrants our trust, not their ability to perform to our expectations.” — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Without attachment, the parent succeeds at most in cowing a child into obedience, at the price of grave damage to the relationship… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Counterwill is an instinctive, automatic resistance to any sense of being forced. It is triggered whenever a person feels controlled or pressured… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“One effect of peer orientation is that the love and nurturance we have for our children cannot get through.” — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Many people have concluded that parents cannot be expected to know what to do without formal training. There are all kinds of… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The power to parent will be transferred to whomever the child depends on, whether or not that person is truly dependable, appropriate,… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Attachment, we have noted, does its work invisibly. People who out of pure instinct have created a good attachment relationship with their… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“External motivators for behavior such as rewards and punishments may destroy the precious internal motivation to be good, making leverage by such… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“When we focus narrowly on what we should be doing, we become blind to our attachment relationship with our children and its… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“As parents who make every effort we can to raise our children in loving security, we do not need to feel more… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Attacking family members is all too typical of peer-oriented children, leaving parents and siblings wounded. In most cases, the attacks will not… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“If development unfolds optimally and the child makes headway in becoming her own person, the need for attachment wanes. As it does,… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Attachment divides the child's world into those the child likes and those the child is indifferent to, those who attract and those… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Young children cannot possibly understand the motives of adults. It means little to a young child that the parent feels love for… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The chief and most damaging of the competing attachments that undermine parenting authority and parental love is the increasing bonding of our… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Human beings have an intuitive understanding of the point at which vulnerability is too much to bear. Vulnerability due to fear of… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The primary culprit is assumed to be peer rejection: shunning, exclusion, shaming, taunting, mocking, bullying. The conclusion reached by some experts is… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Just as an adult-oriented child is more vulnerable in relationship to his parents and teachers, peer-oriented kids are more so in relationship… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“It is easy to misinterpret the child's counterwill as a drive for power. We may never be fully in control of our… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“There is a foolproof way to distinguish peer-distorted counterwill from the genuine drive for autonomy: the maturing, individuating child resists coercion whatever… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Basically, attention follows attachment. The stronger the attachment, the easier it is to secure the child's attention. When attachment is weak, the… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Recognizing that parental responsibility is insufficient for successful child-rearing, but still not conscious of the role of attachment, many experts assume the… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“While it is beneficial for a child to feel bad when anticipating a loss of connection with those who are devoted to… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Although parents and teachers are forever telling children to “grow up,” maturation cannot be commanded. One cannot teach a child to be… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“What is peer orientation? Orientation, the drive to get one's bearings and become acquainted with one's surroundings, is a fundamental human instinct… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Humans never outgrow their need to connect with others, nor should they, but mature, truly individual people are not controlled by these… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Our failure to keep our children attached to us and to the other adults responsible for them has not only taken away… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“There is yet another reason why peer-oriented kids are insatiable. In order to reach the turning point, a child must not only… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“When we feel frustrated, our first inclination is to change whatever isn't working for us. We can try to accomplish this by… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“I see so many situations where a child is in the midst of plenty, a virtual banquet spread out before him, but… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“As parents who make every effort we can to raise our children in loving security, we do not need to feel more guilt than… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The fact is, we in this society are often quite removed from our own emotional reality.” — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Shame is the deepest of the “negative emotions,” a feeling we will do almost anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of shame impairs… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Many adults have not attained maturity — have not mastered being independent, self-motivated individuals capable of tending their own emotional needs and of respecting… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“If a mother has eight children, there are eight mothers. This is not simply because of the fact that the mother was different in… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Without attachment, the parent succeeds at most in cowing a child into obedience, at the price of grave damage to the relationship and to… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“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.… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“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… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Even without world wars, revolutions and emigration, siblings growing up in the same home almost never share the same environment. More accurately, brothers and… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“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… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“One cannot get much more vulnerable than to expose oneself psychologically. To share oneself with another and then be misunderstood or rejected is, for… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
