“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
“The attachment voids experienced by immigrant children are profound. The hardworking parents are focused on supporting their families economically and, unfamiliar with… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Parental efforts to gain leverage generally take two forms: bribery or coercion. If a simple direction such as “I'd like you to… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“When we first went to Provence, I assumed I would be observing a different culture. With attachment in mind, it became obvious… — 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
“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
“In Separation, the second volume of his great trilogy on attachment, John Bowlby described what had been observed when ten small children… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Children displaced from their families, unconnected to their teachers, and not yet mature enough to relate to one another as separate beings,… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Culture is a vehicle for true self-expression. The flowering of individual creativity takes place in the context of culture. When a child… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The traditional hospital practice of excluding parents ignored the importance of attachment relationships as regulators of the child’s emotions, behaviour and physiology.… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“For purposes of child-rearing, the crowning achievement of a working attachment is to instill in a child the desire to be good.… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The only reason for a child not to be aware of his own vulnerability is that it has become too much to… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“attachment is the first priority of living things. It is only when there is some release from this preoccupation that maturation can… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“In response to the intensifying cruelty of children to one another, schools all over this continent are rushing to design programs to… — 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
“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
“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
“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
“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… — 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
“What happens when insatiability dominates a person's emotional functioning? The process of maturation is preempted by an obsession or an addiction, in… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The loquaciousness of many children with ADD is notorious. One Grade 2 boy was called Talk Bird by his classmates, so incessant… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“It is easy to blame television or the movies or rap music for desensitizing our children to human suffering, to violence, and… — 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
“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
“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
