Gabor Maté

And the rest of it depends on the environment.

So you've got the sensitive kid.

The good news is they're also sensitive to the positive.

So if you create a better positive environment at home, they'll respond to that as well.

The first thing they have to do is to recognize how much pain and trauma they might be carrying, which almost everybody in this culture does, but we don't recognize it so well.

Not a question of saying I'm a victim.

You're not a victim.

Here's how it is.

Objectively, here's how it is.

You're only a victim if you use it as an excuse.

They did this to me and therefore... No, that's an excuse.

But if you say this happened to me and now I can take responsibility for dealing with it, then that's empowering to people.

So the first recognition is, yeah, this family has carried multigenerational trauma

It didn't begin with anybody in particular.

It's nobody's fault as such.

But at some point, we have to break the link of transmission.

And might as well do it now rather than wait for the next generation.

And so the great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, who died two and a half, three years ago, he said that the greatest gift a parent can give to their child is his or her own happiness.

So my first advice to parents is work on yourself.

That's the biggest gift you can give to your kids.