Dr Gabor Mate How to Raise Great Kids

When you think about wholeness and contending with these traumatic imprints, so you mentioned some, say, parenting approaches that you disagree with. Are there any approaches or recommendations that you think do more harm than good with respect to contending with trauma or moving towards wholeness? Yeah, any parenting practice or educational practice that focuses on behavior rather than the child's underlying emotional dynamics is going to be harmful. Because what we want out of child rearing is that at the end of it, there should be an autonomous human being respectful of themselves and of others who can be authentic and connected at the same time. That's our goal. I don't think anybody would disagree. That's our goal for human beings. Now, that's a natural developmental process, as long as we provide the right conditions for it. But nothing in nature develops in the wrong context. So, you know, I could have an acorn in my hand, and the nature of that acorn is to become an oak tree, but not if I leave it on my desk. It needs, you know, water and soil and sunlight and so on. A lot of parenting and educational practices focus not on the long-term goal in development, but on fixing the kid's behaviors in the short term. So, we talk about kids are acting out. What do you do when a kid acts out? Well, look at this phrase, acting out. What does it mean to act something out? When I say acting out, when I say a kid is acting out, you will probably think of a kid who's being oppositional or rude or disobedient or aggressive. But that's not what the phrase means. Acting out means to portray in behavior that which we haven't got the words to say in language. So, in a game of charades, where you're not allowed to speak, what do you have to do? You have to act it out. Act it out. If you landed in a country where nobody spoke your language, and yet to portray hunger, you'd have to act it out. Kids are acting out their emotional needs. The question is, are we going to respond to the child or are we going to try and suppress the behavior? So much of what's taught as parenting advice is designed to manipulate or shape or suppress kids' behaviors rather than understanding the child. And by the way, this is also true of adults as well. We look at human beings and we don't see what's really driving them. We just either approve or disapprove of how they're behaving, but we don't make much of an effort. The legal system specializes in not understanding why people behave the way they behave, just in suppressing it. Which is why in Canada, where indigenous people make up 5% of the population, they make up 30% of the jail population. And indigenous women make up 50% of the female jail population in this country. It's an absolute scandal. Same in the U.S. The more oppressed you are, the more marginalized you are, the more you've been traumatized by history, and you know which groups those are in the United States, the more likely you're going to end up in jail. Because the legal system doesn't understand trauma, it doesn't understand human development, and it confuses punishment with rehabilitation. So as a result, in terms of supporting healthy growth of human beings at any level, we need an understanding of what's driving this behavior. And it's not a question of allowing bad behavior or permitting it or encouraging it, but it's a question of what are we going to do about the phenomena of aggression or drug use or, in the case of children, rudeness or disobedience or anything else. What are we going to do about it? Are we going to try and just suppress the behavior? Then you end up where we are with millions of people in jail and lots of kids with learning difficulties and behavior problems and millions of kids being medicated, or are we going to try and understand what's happening, what's driving it? What are the social, cultural dynamics that are driving so much dysfunction? And it's not that hard to perceive. We have the science, we have the research, we're just not applying it.