Hold on to your kids: Why parents need to matter more than peers - Gabor Maté

Laura said:
I've been saying for years that children should NOT be sent to school until they are about 8 or 9 years old. Prior to that, they should spend only a few hours per day in an more or less open play situation where they can learn their letters and numbers and interact with other children to learn social skills. Then, real school at 8 or 9, but with breaks to allow for the development of their myelin sheathing. Further, that they should be tested at about age 12 to see if schooling should continue or if having the basics of reading, writing, arithmetic is enough and it's now time for them to start doing what they really like and which will form the basis of a career. If a kid likes working with tools, this would be the time to let him try it out for a few months to see if that is what is going to make a good life for him. Or working with plants, or designing things and building them, or working with animals, or cooking, or sewing, and so on. If there is academic ability and the kid WANTS to continue studies, that should be an option that is nourished also: medicine, mathematics, engineering, etc. There should be special schools where kids can go and "sample" different careers and decide what they like and are best at doing.

Modern day educational systems are creativity destroying soul-killing machines.
Click to expand...

These are pretty close to what I've thought about for some time, except for the part about development of the myelin sheathing -- I never thought of that. The modern day educational systems ARE creativity destroying and soul-killing systems. And it seems to be getting worse and worse AND kids are being put into these environments at younger and younger ages.
 
Thank you Buddy.
I have only watched the first 20 minutes of the video, but I found it profoundly resonating. I always wandered whether my mother loved me or trusted me at all. I grew up with both biological parents but only shown the corrective admin side of parenting. Attachment was implied, affection was missing, attention was awarded only to prevent bad behavior, or negative consequences. My mother must have been extremely stressed.
My second pregnancy was very badly received by my mother behaving in a total opposite to my first. I was very upset, at 6 months I got hospitalised and treated for stress and brought the pregnancy to term. My younger daughter has chronic astma, battles high levels of cortisol even now at 27, and started to develop small lumps.
My saving grace is my husband. We got married and we wanted a Family. It was tough, we both had to read a lot not to repeat the mistakes of our parents mainly my mother, but we have a good immediate family albeit without the extended part. My father passed away last year, Bless his soul. I tried to be close to my mum, but she kept consistent to her style. Well, what can I do but continue loving her. I will return with more comments after I finished watching the video. Thank you again for bringing up the topic, it is indeed important.
 
I recommend that everyone read this book. While the intended audience is parents and caregivers of children, I think the basic understandings are helpful for everyone. The authors explain that the primary social motivation of people is attachment, that people can only have one direction of their primary attachment, and that people obey, conform to, and seek approval from their primary attachment.

People cannot attach to competing and opposing attachments. In a divorce where the parents are fighting, children can only attach to one parent at best and reject the other parent, or shut down and reject both parents. When children become peer oriented, the parents are rejected if the parents are competing with or opposing the primary peer attachments.

Parents are the natural primary attachment of children. A classic example is a mother duck walking with all the ducklings following in a line behind her. Nature intended children to be parent oriented.

Traditional societies provided children with many adults such as grandparents, uncles, aunts, teachers, priests, townspeople and villagers who all functioned as additional adult attachment figures who were complementary with the primary attachment parents. Children were oriented to their parents as well as complementary adults who were not competing with the parents.

Even with primary attachments, after a period of physical or emotional unavailability, the people need to be collected and reassured for some time before the children are able to attach again.

As modern Western parents push away their children (eg daycare with children, school with children, playdates with children) and the children lose the adult support network, children have an attachment void. An attachment void is intolerable in nature. Children fill that attachment void by attaching to other children in their environment, which is unnatural but the consequence of losing their parents and other adults. It is as unnatural as a newly hatched baby duckling that attaches to a nearby moving object such as a dog or human or machine when mother duck is not around to imprint at hatching.

The power of parenting comes from the attachment relationship as the people seek approval from and conform to their primary attachments. Teenagers will obey their primary attachments, as will children (and I think as will adults).

I add that most people are basically peer oriented or parent oriented. Some adults are still parent oriented. The problem as I see it has many permutations. It is a problem for children or adults to be parent oriented if the parents are narcissists; in this situation, it would be better to sever the attachment with the narcissistic parents and perhaps become peer oriented. It is a problem for adults to be peer oriented if the peers they have chosen as their primary attachment are not the best people (eg liars, cheaters, addicts); in this situation, it would be better to sever the attachment with these peers and perhaps choose new peers. I think it's an interesting question whether a mature person can have no attachment orientation at all. The primary attachment is what binds and blinds people. This is why the primary attachment figure must be as upright and pure as possible, as people will seek to be like and mimic the primary attachment figure.

The 3rd edition of the book is the one to get, as the authors updated it with additional chapter(s) discussing Facebook and other social media.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom