Dr. Gabor Maté

Mostly it's the question of meeting children's needs, giving them the right conditions, and then they will develop self-regulation.

They learn it because you're self-regulated, so they're watching you.

You're not reactive and explosive and screaming.

You realize, oh, I'm angry.

Okay, I'm angry.

But you're not screaming at the kid.

You know, so in the right environment, these traits spontaneously evolve or develop in a human being.

So our society is always about how do we teach these skills and no skills?

Well, teaching is important, but more important is the child's spontaneous growth given the right environment.

And what I'm saying about this toxic culture, we don't give our kids the right environment.

So I've had a marriage that we've had a lot of unhappiness.

We've been married 53 years now.

53?

Yeah, we're very happy together.

Now you are.

But it took us a lot of work, a lot of commitment.

But here's what I want to say.

There's two ways you can tell if a marriage is unhappy.

One is you can ask the parents.

The other is you can measure the cortisol level of the children.