Dr. Gabor Maté
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Now you're presenting a child with a tragic dilemma.
I can have my authentic emotion or I can have my relationship with my parent on whom my life depends.
So I can be authentic or I can be attached in a relationship, but I can't have both.
And to the child, the timeout is life-threatening.
Because you might be alone forever, right?
Yeah, the child doesn't know that, you see.
So basically, you're threatening the child with depriving them of their greatest need, which is the connection with you.
Yeah, love.
Yeah, the love, yeah.
But that's not the answer.
The answer is when they're screaming, to pick them up.
You're angry at daddy, aren't you?
You really wish you had that cookie.
Yeah.
Oh, I get it.
You know, and then the child relaxes and the anger moves through them.
And you know what they learn?
That anger is just something that moves through you.
You can let go of it.
If you don't see the child, don't accept the child's emotion, they're going to have to repress it.