Susan Stiffelman: Welcome to the Parenting Without Power Struggles podcast. In today's episode, you'll hear part of a workshop I did with Dr. Gabor Mate. It was a fantastic session, and I'm excited to share a little bit of it with you here. But first, hi, I'm Susan Stiffelman, I'm your host and the author of Parenting Without Power Struggles and Parenting with Presence.

Susan Stiffelman: In this series, I share some of the things I've learned in my 40 plus years as a teacher, a marriage and family therapist, a parent educator, and a mom, and I should say, and a human being, just living life, traveling the same road that all of us do as we try and make sense of the world, and stay in connection with our best selves.

Susan Stiffelman: We cover everything related to parenting with guests like Martha Beck, Jessica Leahy, Lisa Damore, Dan Siegel, Mona Delahook, Byron Katie, Jack Kornfield, John Kabat Zinn, Debbie Reber, Ned Hallowell, and many other wise and wonderful speakers. So you can check all the episodes out here at SusanStiffelman.com/podcast.

Susan Stiffelman: You can also submit a question if you have one at that website. Before we get started, though, I'd like to invite you to visit the whole website SusanStiffelman.com.There you can sign up for my free newsletter, which delivers practical tips and inspiration. You'll also find information about my private coaching, my Parenting Without Power Struggles membership program, and a co parenting with a narcissist membership.

Susan Stiffelman: There's also over 40 deep dive masterclasses on everything from boundaries and routines to sleep and chores to managing aggression and helping sensitive and anxious kids thrive. You'll also be able to find out more about my recent masterclasses with Dr. Dan Siegel on generational healing and with Dr. Gabor Mate on cultivating secure attachment, as well as upcoming sessions setting healthy expectations for complex kids. This is going to be a great session for anyone with a child who sometimes struggles to fit in and go with the flow, as well as an upcoming class with Maggie Dent on boys in school, and another session with Dr. Dan Siegel in May. So head on over to Susanstiffelman.com. 

Susan Stiffelman: in today's session, I'm going to share a clip from a recent 90 minute workshop that I did with Dr. Gabor Maté. Gabor Maté is a retired physician and the best selling author of five books published in nearly 40 languages and an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness.

Susan Stiffelman: His most recent book, The Myth of Normal, Trauma, Illness, And healing in a toxic culture is a New York Times and international bestseller. Our conversation was wide ranging from talking about the purpose of attachment instincts to peer orientation, parental presence. and establishing or re establishing a strong and trusting parent child relationship.

Susan Stiffelman: Have a listen to this clip and we'll come back for the wrap up. I'd love to hear you say more about peer orientation and how to tell if a child is overly dependent on peers and kind of some of the fallout that we see with peer oriented young people. 

Gabor Mate: Sure, so this is Gordon Neufeld's work. To my mind, he's the world's most profoundly grounded developmental psychologist.

Gabor Mate: Really, I say that with, not because he's my friend but because that's what I believe. I believe that for decades, and this book, Hold On To Your Kids, Why Parents Need To Matter More Than Peers, which has been published in, I don't know, 35 languages is his work. I just did the writing with him. So what I'm saying now, I'm channeling Gordon.

Gabor Mate: So basically, to go back to what I said earlier, Children have this need to attach, but there's nothing in their brain that tells them who to attach to. Nature's job is not to, nature's, nature's done it's job when it's given us the attachment instinct. But who to attach to? Is it up to the culture? And so that again, as we evolved in small band hunter gatherer groups for millions and hundreds of thousands of years until a blink of an eye ago, the attachment figures for the kids were around all the time.

Gabor Mate: Kids were around parents and adults all the time. So kids attach to adults as their models, as their mentors, as their caregivers, as their protectors, nurturers. Relatively recent times, kids spend most of their time away from parents. But the child's brain, as I said earlier, can't handle the lack of an attachment or competing primary attachments.

Gabor Mate: And it's like the duck which hatches from the egg and sees the mother duck and imprints on the mother duck and then follows the mother duck around. That's attachment. But we know that when the duckling hatches without the mother duck being present, the duckling will attach to anything that moves. And that could be a dog or a horse or a mechanical toy.

Gabor Mate: None of which are designed by nature to bring that duckling up to adulthood. Developmentally, it's a disaster. In the same way, our children, when they spend most of their time away from us, they can't hold on to us. Their attachment brain doesn't work. Doesn't hold on to us. They'll attach to whoever's around.

Gabor Mate: Who's around? The peer group. Now they attach to the peer group. Now for the first time in history, you have most young children looking to other immature creatures as their models, as their, as their cues as to how to behave, how to walk, how to talk, how to be. And, because they've shifted their attachment relationship to the peer group, it seems strange to them to be told what to do by adults.

Gabor Mate: So they start opposing what we do, now we diagnose them, you know, rather, and oppositionality, when you think about it, is not a disease, it's a relationship, because you can only oppose somebody if you're in a relationship with them. And so, rather than diagnosing the child, why don't we diagnose in the relationship, and saying, what's missing in this relationship, that the child doesn't trust the adult enough.

Gabor Mate: Or distrust the adults. So peer orientation is when kids start looking to peers for their modeling, and that really interferes with parenting and with learning and with behavior in a whole lot of ways. For example, attachment makes the child wants to be good for whoever they wanna attach to. So as long as the child is peer attached, parent attached, he'll, she or she, they wanna be good for the parents or the adults, the teachers, and so on.

Gabor Mate: Once a child becomes peer attached, now they want to be good for their peers. What it means to show up as good for your peers is not the same as what it means to be good for the adults. You know, to be good for the adults means to be cooperative and respectful and reasonably obedient, not in a suppressed way, but just because it makes sense to you.

Gabor Mate: Once you become peer attached, what it means to be good, Is to look good and wear the right kind of shoes and to even to maybe be insulting towards adults. And these are attachment dynamics, not behaviors.

Gabor Mate: But the child's brain, as I said earlier, can't handle the lack of an attachment or competing primary attachments. And it's like the duck, which hatches from the egg and sees the mother duck and imprints on the mother duck and then follows the mother duck around. That's attachment. But we know That when the duckling hatches without the mother duck being present, the duckling will attach to anything that moves.

Gabor Mate: And that could be a dog or a horse or a mechanical toy. None of which are designed by nature to bring that duckling up to adulthood. Developmentally, it's a disaster. In the same way, our children, when they spend most of their time away from us, they can't hold on to us. Their attachment brain doesn't hold on to us.

Gabor Mate: They'll attach to whoever's around. Who's around? The peer group. Now they attach to the peer group. Now for the first time in history, you have most young children looking to other immature creatures as their models, as their, as their cues as to how to behave, how to walk, how to talk, how to be. Because they've shifted their attachment relationship to the peer group, it seems strange to them to be told what to do by adults.

Gabor Mate: So they start opposing what we do. Now we diagnose them, you know, rather, and oppositionality, when you think about it, is not a disease, it's a relationship. Because you can only oppose somebody if you're in a relationship with 

Susan Stiffelman: them. 

Gabor Mate: And so, rather than diagnosing the child, why don't we diagnose in the relationship?

Gabor Mate: And saying, what's missing in this relationship? That the child doesn't trust the adult enough. Or distrust the adults. So peer orientation is when kids start looking to peers for their modeling, and that really interferes with parenting and with learning and with behavior in a whole lot of ways. For example, attachment makes the child wants to be good for whoever they wanna attach to.

Gabor Mate: So as long as the child is peer attached, parent attached, he'll, she or she, they wanna be good for the parents or the adults, the teachers, and so on. Once a child becomes peer attached, now they wanna be good for their peers. 

Susan Stiffelman: Yeah. But how 

Gabor Mate: does how, what it means to show up is good for your peers is not the same as what it means to be good for the adults.

Gabor Mate: You know? To be good for the adults means to be cooperative and respectful and reasonably obedient. Not in a suppressed way, but just 'cause it makes sense to you. Once you become peer attached, what it means to be good is to look good and wear the right kind of shoes. And to even to maybe be insulting towards adults and these are attachment dynamics not behaviors.

Susan Stiffelman: Well, I hope you enjoyed that. Honestly, there were times in our conversation that I was literally leaning forward in my chair. There was so much profound information that we were covering in our 90 minutes together. One of the things that we spent a lot of time on was how to approach a child who has turned away, whose difficult behavior may be an indication that the attachment instinct toward us.

Susan Stiffelman: has been weakened or compromised. It's so important that we hold on to our kids as the title of Gabber's book with Dr. Gordon Neufeld suggests. If you're interested in hearing this workshop in its entirety, you can just visit SusanStifelman. com. It's there with all the masterclasses. Meanwhile, look for ways this week to offer your kids your wholehearted presence, whether they're reaching for us or they're rejecting us.

Susan Stiffelman: Our kids want and need a strong, secure connection with us. If this episode has been valuable to you or you're finding the whole series helpful, I would love it if you'd take a moment to leave a rating and especially a review. It doesn't take long, but it's a great help in ensuring that parents around the world find it in their recommendations.

Susan Stiffelman: And again, for all things parenting, visit SusanStiffelman.Com. You can find out about the class on Healthy Expectations, for those of you with a youngster with ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Heightened Sensitivity, or just a child who marches to the beat of their own drum, that's a class with Debbie Steinberg Kuntz and Elaine Taylor Klaus, both experts in the field of ADHD.

Susan Stiffelman: And Gifted2e. And then, there's a great session with Maggie Dent on Boys and School. A tremendous session, I know that's going to be great. And in May, we'll have a second, Part 2, with Dr. Dan Siegel. You can see the whole library of class replays and upcoming sessions at SusanStiffelman. com. And now, as we wrap up, please take a moment to acknowledge yourself for showing up, for wanting to be connected to your kids.

Susan Stiffelman: And that really starts with being connected to yourself. So remember, no matter how busy life gets, look for those moments of sweetness and joy. Stay well, take care, and I'll see you next time.