This Is Why Parenting Is Hard Today - How To Raise Healthy Kids In The Modern World | Dr. Gabor Maté

what advice do you have for parents who are who are raising kids in this world today so that they can you know raise them to the best of their ability it's very difficult to raise kids these days because we're not living in the way that human beings evolved like every animal evolves in a certain environment and context and is suited to that environment and context if you want to understand elephants don't study them in the zoo study them out in the in the forest or where they live you know and human beings we no longer live in the environments even close to it in which we evolved out there in nature in small groups connected to each other parenting kids was there used to be a group activity it happened in the tribe in the clan parents had lots of support kids spent their whole day around their parents it wasn't goodbye in the morning hello in the evening and most of our time is spent away from each other that would never used to be the case not throughout millions of years and hundreds of thousands of years now we can't go back to that life you know nor would anybody want to necessarily but we have to understand what we've lost so first of all you have to stand a few things understand a few things the great Buddhist teacher tikn Han who died about a year ago he said that the greatest gift a parent can give to their child is his or her own happiness so take care of your emotional states because your kid is sensitive enough to be downloading your emotional states and making them their own so if you're stressed unhappy depressed anxious addicted believe me your kid is going to absorb all that and make it about themselves that there's something wrong with them them so take care of yourself live a life that you can live with and if you get the first three years right by the way you got it made so when your kids are really small consciously make the first three years as stress free and as clear of psychologial dysfunction as possible that means work on your traumas work on your relationship with your partner your spouse that's the first thing beginning with pregnancy by the way number one number two understand what the needs of children are are needs of children are for unconditional loving Acceptance in the context of a secular relationship where the child doesn't have to work to make their relationship work the acceptance and the regard should be unconditional allow the child to have all their emotions what are the emotions are let the child have them understand them don't force them to suppress their emotions I'm not saying be permissive with behaviors I'm saying don't force the child to suppress their emotions don't tell them not to be angry don't tell them to cheer up when they're sad validate the anger validate the sadness these are essential brain circuits for such feelings nature gave them those for a reason allow the child to experience them that way they can stay connected to themselves thirdly there's a need for spontaneous free play out in nature get the hell away from these devices don't give a one-year-old an iPad or a cell phone get rid of the screens in your house when your kids are small have a screen in a locked room for yourself if you need one but don't be phoning and texting and and emailing around your kids cuz the message they get is the devic is more important than they are don't go for a walk with them and texting and looking at your cell at the same time don't give the kids these devices they've been documented shown to interfere with the healthy development of brain circuits this has been shown on brain scans so if I was raising kids today I wouldn't let them near a screen for years on the other hand I would encourage them to be outdoors be with them play with in nature spontaneous creative play so these are the essential needs of children I talked about in this book They're difficult to provide in this culture CU if you do any of this stuff you'll be an outlier cuz all your friends and all your kids friends parents will be on their cell phones all the time so you have to make a decision not to buy into the false values of this what I call this toxic culture so that's some basic advice you know easily said hard to achieve but at least these are the goals that we need to be striving for I wish I had known stuff when my kids are small that's some great tips and I'm sure the audience is going to appreciate that how do you feel like where's the line with codling and like tough love when it comes to kids because I hear a lot of people talk about now that you know kids should be able to experience some levels of stress as they get older and adversity so that they can develop healthy coping mechanisms for when they're adults like what's your take on that well first of all there's no such thing as tough love there's either tough or there's love but there's no such thing as Tough Love by tough love they usually mean punishment and rejection which is unhealthy that's the first point discipline we want to teach our kids discipline yes we do we don't want to teach it to them we want them to develop discipline but let's look at that word discipline what's a disciple well who follows you yeah why did Jesus disciples follow him because he loved them and they loved him kids if we love them they will follow us they'll be our disciples we don't have to force them into anything it's the quality of their relationship and how gentle we are with them now as to cuddling kids let them experience the stresses of Life believe me they will that's how life is we don't have to add extra stress to their lives by punishing them they're going to have disappointments their friends will not want to play with them one day their cat will die they may break a leg they will lose a beloved object mom or dad may get sick the best friend will move away to a different town these are the inevitable stresses of life we don't have to impose stresses on kids what we have to do is to help them cope with the stresses that naturally arise that's not cuddling that's just when a kid has grief because their best friend moved away you hold them and you say that really sad is that's really sad that makes you feel sad doesn't it you don't buy them a toy to make them feel better you let them have their sadness but you support them in that sadness so parents who cuddle their kids try and protect them try and bribe them they're not helping their kids but neither are parents helping their kids who punish their kids or who force their kids to suppress their natural emotions yeah some great points and I think what you said is spoton like you don't want to try to fix their problem you want to support them through the problem so they can get used to having support and asking for support when they're going through hard times the last question I want to ask as we kind of bring things somewhat full circle is I think a lot of the the problems that we create for ourselves whether it's using substances to numb pain whether it's you know escaping by you know staying on our phones too long or being in the wrong relationships or whatever the case is it's because we're like afraid of being with ourselves and we're afraid of being ourselves and we're disconnected from who we are and we're lost what are some ways that if somebody's listening to this and they feel like they're afraid of being themselves they're feeling disconnected from their true self how can they get back to that level of authenticity well first of all if if I'm afraid to be with myself there's a good reason for it it's because when I was going through difficult stuff as an infant or small child I was left totally alone and for the child those states of fear or emotional pain are unbearable therefore we fear being with ourselves we always try and distract ourselves somehow whatever that is music or a book or some restless activity or television or talking to people or you know but that fear of being with ourselves that's a sign of trauma so first of all don't make yourself wrong for it but understand that that too is a source in your life and try to understand your story why you might have developed that fear of yourself and realize and this takes meditation it takes work it takes body work whatever it takes that you're not that child anymore that when you get triggered if you learn what that's all about you learn that you can actually handle that emotion so it's okay for my wife to say no and I might say okay I'm disappointed but I don't have to put myself in her through a big stressful drama because I'm still telling myself that I'm an abandoned infant you know so we need to strive to get into the present moment as much as possible that may take spiritual work that may take body work that may take therapy but it can be done it might take connecting with nature which is always present but um it can be done I have a lot of parents that listen to the podcast whose kids or they have a loved one who was suffering from addiction right now like what is the most valuable thing that they could know when it comes to loving with somebody who's struggling with addiction so I know we've been talking about my new book The Myth of normal but for those people that are struggling with addiction in their lives I also recommend my previous book called in the realm of hung ghost close encounters with addiction and there I engage with the very question you just asked so my advice is to parents is that there's three things you can do with a loved one who's addicted two of them are sane one of them is insane what I don't believe is in tough love there's either love or there's tough but love is not tough and tough is not love so there's three approaches and I've had so many parents tell me that they're so regret they're so-called tough love approaches but that's the only thing they knew because that's what the experts told them so there's three approaches parents you can take towards a child who's caught in a throws of addiction two of them are sane as I said one is insane it's totally sane first of all you have to recognize something the child's addiction is not an isolated phenomenon the child's addiction is a manifestation of familiar trauma that child is simply the canary in the mind that're the sensitive one who's manifesting all the suffering and multigenerational Trauma multigenerational trauma in your family it's nobody's fault as a parent I passed my trauma onto my kids I'm not saying that proudly but I'm also not saying with with full of Shame anymore it's just what happened cuz I didn't know any better I did my best you did your best but if we're carrying trauma our best includes the transmission of trauma to our kids so that your child's addiction is a manifestation not just of some pathology inside the child but of a whole family Dynamic so are you willing to look at the whole family are you willing to use the child's addiction as a wakeup call for the whole family to engage in examining what happened to all of us here the child happens to be the sensitive one but they didn't cause it they didn't start with them so a sane approach is to say I'll come back to this in a moment but a sane approach is to say we're get it right now your addiction is your attempt to deal with pain in your life and you seem not to be able to do without it we get it we're not going to argue with you we're not going to try and change you we wish it was different for you you but we'll love you and accept you no matter what happens for you and we're going to be there for you we're not going to be put up with being like to we're not going to put up with being stolen from but we're going to love you and we're going to be in your lives and we're not going to try and change you because we realize that then change can only come from within yourself that's a sane approach another equally valid approach is to say sweetheart we're not going to blame you for your addiction we know that right now this is what you feel you must do but it's too pain ful for us we can't be around it we don't know how to handle it so when you've are willing to get some help and so on please let us know we'll be there for you but right now we just can't handle it not for because of us you because we're not strong enough to handle it that's honest you say so lovingly not with a attempt to manipulate the child but just that's your truth that's totally saying what both approaches have in common is we're not going to try and change you the third approach is we're going to be in your life I'm going to keep controlling you and and inducing you and threatening you and begging you to change that's insane making all you're going to do is get more resistance and you're going to make yourself crazy so either so both levels either be with the person and accept them for who they are or accept them for who they are but not be with them if you can't stand it but whatever you do don't put pressure on them to change because whenever there's pressure there's going to be push back now interventions here's the intervention that I believe in by the way in the book I quote this friend of mine he's a psychiatrist in his an American Lota background his name is l Mel Madrona and L says that in the lot tradition in the L loto Su tradition when somebody got sick the community gathered around them and they said thank you your illness manifests some dysfunction in the whole Community You're just showing us some imbalance in our whole community so your healing is all healing that's the kind of intervention I believe in so the intervention that I believe in is you got this addiction thank you the pain that you're trying to sooth is not just your pain it's the pain of the whole multigenerational family and we're going to try and heal that pain and we invite you to join us and if you're not ready to join us that's okay we're still going to do the work for ourselves but we'd love it if you did join us in that work that kind of intervention I believe in but not just as words but his actions in other words that the family uses the addiction in one individual as a wakeup call to deal with the multigenerational trauma in the whole family that's a beautiful intervention so that's my answer to those parents and believe me I know how difficult it is to have adult children who are struggling with issues addiction or otherwise for a parent there's no greater heartache you have to resist the temptation to try and fix the kid so that you can feel better that was phenomenal and and so so so well said so well articulated and I think people parents listening to this are going to get so much value not only in those last few minutes but people are going to love this conversation we went deep on so many things and I think people are going to want to read your new book so if you could just share with the listeners where's the best place for them to find the book and what's like the one thing you're most excited about with regards to it well the myth of normal summarizes everything I've learned in decades of Medical Practice also is a heal and also as a person very much engaged in my own healing which is an ongoing process it'll be published in 25 languages it'll be published in the states in the UK in Canada where I live you should be able to get it anywhere I have a certain bias that people purchase books from local book sellers where those are available they're endangered species but of course it's also available for pre-ordering online at the big online book sellers I don't know what to name them the publication date is September the 13th so it's available in the immediate future or whenever you broadcast this particular episode it should be available by the time people hear this particular conversation and uh you can get it everywhere the myth of normal trauma illness and healing in a toxic culture and by the way I wrote the book with my son and that itself was a way of working out our mutual drama

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Length: 15min 21sec (921 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2024